Bodies and Boundaries in Graeco-Roman Antiquity

Published by De Gruyter 2009

Bodies and Boundaries in Graeco-Roman Antiquity

Edited by: Thorsten Fögen and Mireille M. Lee

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110212532

Overview
Contents

About this book

In the Graeco-Roman world, the cosmic order was enacted, in part, through bodies. The evaluative divisions between, for example, women and men, humans and animals, “barbarians” and “civilized” people, slaves and free citizens, or mortals and immortals, could all be played out across the terrain of somatic difference, embedded as it was within wider social and cultural matrices.
This volume explores these thematics of bodies and boundaries: to examine the ways in which bodies, lived and imagined, were implicated in issues of cosmic order and social organisation in classical antiquity. It focuses on the body in performance (especially in a rhetorical context), the erotic body, the dressed body, pagan and Christian bodies as well as divine bodies and animal bodies.
The articles draw on a range of evidence and approaches, cover a broad chronological and geographical span, and explore the ways bodies can transgress and dissolve, as well shore up, or even create, boundaries and hierarchies. This volume shows that boundaries are constantly negotiated, shifted and refigured through the practices and potentialities of embodiment.

Author / Editor information

Thorsten Fögen, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; Mireille M. Lee, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.

Reviews

"Embodiment and liminality are important concepts in the postmodern discourses of dominance, deviance, power, and self-determination, among others. The essays in this volume, well researched and well documented, offer a useful point of entry for classicists into debates that have profound implications for issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, and social status. It is exciting to see classicists engaging this body of thought."
Michael Broder in: BMCR 2011.01.19

Topics

Frontmatter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	I
Table of Contents Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	VII
A. Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
B. The Body in Performance
Sermo corporis: Ancient Reflections on gestus, vultus and vox Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
Bodies and Topographies in Ancient Stylistic Theory Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
Paying Attention to the Man behind the Curtain: Disclosing and Withholding the Imperial Presence in Justinianic Constantinople Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
C. The Erotic Body
Man as Monster: Eros and Hubris in Plato’s Symposium ∗ Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	87
Corpus erat: Sulpicia’s Elegiac Text and Body in Ovid’s Pygmalion Narrative (Met. 10.238-297) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	111
Transsexuals and Transvestites in Ovid’s Metamorphoses Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
D. The Dressed Body
Body-Modification in Classical Greece Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
“Clothes Make the Man”: Dressing the Roman Freedman Body Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
E. Pagan and Christian Bodies
The Female Body in Late Antiquity: Between Virtue, Taboo and Eroticism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
Early Christian and Judicial Bodies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	237
F. Animal Bodies and Human Bodies
Shifting Species: Animal and Human Bodies in Attic Vase Painting of the 6th and 5th Centuries B.C. Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
Exemplary Animals: Greek Animal Statues and Human Portraiture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	283
Backmatter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	311

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Academics, Libraries, Institutes
Pages
- Front matter: 8
- Main content: 317
Keywords: Ancient Greek Literature; Classical Latin Literature; Body (Cultural Concepts); History of Ancient Arts

eBook

Published: January 13, 2010
ISBN: 9783110212532

Hardcover

Published: December 14, 2009
ISBN: 9783110212525

Bodies and Boundaries in Graeco-Roman Antiquity

Frontmatter

Table of Contents

A. Introduction

Sermo corporis: Ancient Reflections on gestus, vultus and vox

Bodies and Topographies in Ancient Stylistic Theory

Paying Attention to the Man behind the Curtain: Disclosing and Withholding the Imperial Presence in Justinianic Constantinople

Man as Monster: Eros and Hubris in Plato’s Symposium ∗

Corpus erat: Sulpicia’s Elegiac Text and Body in Ovid’s Pygmalion Narrative (Met. 10.238-297)

Transsexuals and Transvestites in Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Body-Modification in Classical Greece

“Clothes Make the Man”: Dressing the Roman Freedman Body

The Female Body in Late Antiquity: Between Virtue, Taboo and Eroticism

Early Christian and Judicial Bodies

Shifting Species: Animal and Human Bodies in Attic Vase Painting of the 6th and 5th Centuries B.C.

Exemplary Animals: Greek Animal Statues and Human Portraiture

Backmatter