| Description |
1 online resource (224 pages) |
| Series |
Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion Ser |
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Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion Ser
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| Contents |
Cover; Contents; Introduction: Hagiography and the History of Sexuality; Chapter 1. Fancying Hermits: Sublimation and the Arts of Romance; The Queer Life of Paul the Hermit; The Queer Marriage of Malchus the Monk; Hilarion's Last Laugh; Prolongations: Fantasies of a Faun; Reading (as) Another, Woman; Chapter 2. Dying for a Life: Martyrdom, Masochism, and Female (Auto) Biography; Praising Paula; Remembering Macrina; Confessing Monica; Testimony to (Woman's) Survival; Fragments of an Autobiography; Chapter 3. Hybrid Desire: Empire, Sadism, and the Soldier Saint |
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Domination and Submission in the Life of MartinSulpicius's Passion; The Hagiographer, the Ethnographer, and the Native; Witnessing Ambivalence; Chapter 4. Secrets of Seduction: The Lives of Holy Harlots; The Lamb, the Wolf, and the Fool: Mary, Niece of Abraham; Seduction of the Eye: Pelagia of Antioch; Sacrifice in the Desert: Mary of Egypt; The Joy of Harlotry; Postscript (Catching My Breath); Notes; Bibliography; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; V; W; Y; Z; Acknowledgments |
| Summary |
Annotation. Has a repressive morality been the primary contribution of Christianity to the history of sexuality? The ascetic concerns that pervade ancient Christian texts would seem to support such a common assumption. Focusing on hagiographical literature, Virginia Burrus pursues a fresh path of interpretation, arguing that the early accounts of the lives of saints are not antierotic but rather convey a sublimely transgressive "countereroticism" that resists the marital, procreative ethic of sexuality found in other strands of Christian tradition. Without reducing the erotics of ancient hagiography to a single formula, The Sex Lives of Saintsframes the broad historical, theological, and theoretical issues at stake in such a revisionist interpretation of ascetic eroticism, with particular reference to the work of Michel Foucault and Georges Bataille, David Halperin and Geoffrey Harpham, Leo Bersani and Jean Baudrillard. Burrus subsequently proceeds through close, performative readings of the earliest Lives of Saints, mostly dating to the late fourth and early fifth centuriesJerome's Lives of Paul, Malchus, Hilarion, and Paula; Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Macrina; Augustine's portrait of Monica; Sulpicius Severus's Life of Martin; and the slightly later Lives of so-called harlot saints. Queer, s/m, and postcolonial theories are among the contemporary discourses that prove intriguingly resonant with an ancient art of "saintly" loving that remains, in Burrus's reading, promisingly mobile, diverse, and open-ended |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-208) and index |
| Audience |
College Audience University of Pennsylvania Press |
| Subject |
Christian hagiography -- History -- To 1500
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Sex -- Religious aspects -- Christianity -- History of doctrines
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Christian hagiography
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Sex -- Religious aspects -- Christianity -- History of doctrines
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| Genre/Form |
History
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780812200720 |
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0812200721 |
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