Synopses & Reviews
The essays in this provocative collection exemplify the innovations that have characterized the relatively new field of late ancient studies. Focused on civilizations clustered mainly around the Mediterranean and covering the period between roughly 100 and 700 CE, scholars in this field have brought history and cultural studies to bear on theology and religious studies. They have adopted the methods of the social sciences and humanities—particularly those of sociology, cultural anthropology, and literary criticism. By emphasizing cultural and social history and considerations of gender and sexuality, scholars of late antiquity have revealed the late ancient world as far more varied than had previously been imagined.
The contributors investigate three key concerns of late ancient studies: gender, asceticism, and historiography. They consider Macrina’s scar, Mary’s voice, and the harlot’s body as well as Augustine, Jovinian, Gregory of Nazianzus, Julian, and Ephrem the Syrian. Whether examining how animal bodies figured as a means for understanding human passion and sexuality in the monastic communities of Egypt and Palestine or meditating on the almost modern epistemological crisis faced by Theodoret in attempting to overcome the barriers between the self and the wider world, these essays highlight emerging theoretical and critical developments in the field.
Contributors. Daniel Boyarin, David Brakke, Virginia Burrus, Averil Cameron, Susanna Elm, James E. Goehring, Susan Ashbrook Harvey, David G. Hunter, Blake Leyerle, Dale B. Martin, Patricia Cox Miller, Philip Rousseau, Teresa M. Shaw, Maureen A. Tilley, Dennis E. Trout, Mark Vessey
Review
“The essays in The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies are all significant in their own rights, and collectively they provide an excellent portrait of the ‘state of the art.’ This book both charts the history of a generation of scholarship and points forward toward the next steps in the critical, theoretically inflected engagement with the cultural world of late antiquity.”—Elizabeth Castelli, Associate Professor of Religion at Barnard College and author of Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making
Review
“This collection’s foci—gender, asceticism, and historiography—outline the very engines of the cultural turn in the discipline and show early Christian studies at its most engaged with current trends throughout the humanities.”—Derek Krueger, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro and author of Writing and Holiness: The Practice of Authorship in the Early Christian East
Synopsis
The essays in this provocative collection exemplify the innovations that have characterized the relatively new field of late ancient studies. Focused on civilizations clustered mainly around the Mediterranean, during the period between roughly 100 and 700 CE, scholars working in late ancient studies have brought history and cultural studies to bear on theology and religious studies. They have adopted the methods of the social sciences and humanities--particularly of sociology, cultural anthropology, and literary criticism. Following developments in those fields, scholars of late antiquity have emphasized cultural and social history and considerations of gender and sexuality. In so doing, they have revealed the late ancient world as far more varied than had previously been imagined. The contributors investigate three key concerns that have engaged scholars of late antiquity: gender, asceticism, and historiography. Whether examining how animal bodies figured as a means for understanding human passion and sexuality in the monastic communities of Egypt and Palestine or meditating on the almost modern epistemological crisis faced by Theodoret in attempting to overcome the barriers between the self and the wider world, these essays chart the work that has defined late ancient studies and point toward emerging theoretical and critical developments in the field.
Synopsis
Collection of essays that focuses on questions of gender and culture in early Christianity.
About the Author
Dale B. Martin is Professor and Chair of Religious Studies at Yale University. Among his books are Inventing Superstition: From the Hippocratics to the Christians and The Corinthian Body.
Patricia Cox Miller is W. Earl Ledden Professor of Religion at Syracuse University. Among her books are The Poetry of Thought in Late Antiquity: Essays in Imagination and Religion and Dreams in Late Antiquity: Studies in the Imagination of a Culture.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction / Dale B. Martin 1
Gender
The Lady Appears: Materializations of "Woman" in Early Monastic Literature / David Brakke 25
No Friendly Letters: Augustine's Correspondence with Women / Maureen A. Tilley 40
On Mary's Voice: Gendered Words in Syriac Marian Tradition / Susan Ashbrook Harvey 63
Is There a Harlot in This Text?: Hagiography and the Grotesque / Patricia Cox Miller 87
Macrina's Tattoo / Virginia Burrus 103
Aestheticism
Rereading the Jovinianist Controversy: Aestheticism and Clerical Authority in Late Ancient Christianity / David G. Hunter 119
The Dark Side of Landscape: Ideology and Power in the Christian Myth of the Desert / James E. Goehring 136
Monks and Other Animals / Blake Leyerle 150
Historiography
Archives in the Fiction: Rabbinic Historiography and Church History / Daniel Boyarin 175
How to Read Heresiology / Averil Cameron 193
Ascetic Practice and the Genealogy of Heresy: Problems in Modern Scholarship and Ancient Textual Representation / Teresa M. Shaw 213
History, Fiction, and Figuralism in Book 8 of Augustine's Confessions / Mark Vessey 237
Hellenism and Historiography: Gregory of Nazianzus and Julian in Dialogue / Susanna Elm 258
Knowing Theodoret: Text and Self / Philip Rousseau 278
Damasus and the Invention of Early Christian Rome / Dennis E. Trout 298
Bibliography 317
Contributors 355
Index of Modern Authors 357
Index of Citations to Ancient Authors and Scriptures 360