The Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages

The Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages PDF Author: Joan Cadden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521483780
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Book Description
This book examines how scientific ideas about sex differences in the later Middle Ages participated in cultural assumptions about gender.

Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages

Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages PDF Author: Joan Cadden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521343633
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description


Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages

Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages PDF Author: Sharon A. Farmer
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9780816638932
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
Nothing less than a rethinking of what we mean when we talk about "men" and "women" of the medieval period, this volume demonstrates how the idea of gender -- in the Middle Ages no less than now -- intersected in subtle and complex ways with other categories of difference. Responding to the insights of postcolonial and feminist theory, the authors show that medieval identities emerged through shifting paradigms -- that fluidity, conflict, and contingency characterized not only gender, but also sexuality, social status, and religion. This view emerges through essays that delve into a wide variety of cultures and draw on a broad range of disciplinary and theoretical approaches. Scholars in the fields of history as well as literary and religious studies consider gendered hierarchies in western Christian, Jewish, Byzantine, and Islamic areas of the medieval world.

Gender and diffenrence in the Middle Ages

Gender and diffenrence in the Middle Ages PDF Author: Sharon A. Farmer
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9781452905563
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 404

Book Description
Nothing less than a rethinking of what we mean when we talk about "men" and "women" of the medieval period, this volume demonstrates how the idea of gender -- in the Middle Ages no less than now -- intersected in subtle and complex ways with other categories of difference. Responding to the insights of postcolonial and feminist theory, the authors show that medieval identities emerged through shifting paradigms -- that fluidity, conflict, and contingency characterized not only gender, but also sexuality, social status, and religion. This view emerges through essays that delve into a wide variety of cultures and draw on a broad range of disciplinary and theoretical approaches. Scholars in the fields of history as well as literary and religious studies consider gendered hierarchies in western Christian, Jewish, Byzantine, and Islamic areas of the medieval world.

The Meanings of Nudity in Medieval Art

The Meanings of Nudity in Medieval Art PDF Author: Sherry C. M. Lindquist
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 9781409422846
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Book Description
Addressing a strangely neglected key issue in the history of art, this volume engages the variety and complexity of medieval representations of the unclothed human body. The Meanings of Nudity in Medieval Art breaks ground by offering a variety of approaches to explore the meanings of both male and female nudity in European painting, manuscripts and sculpture ranging from the late antique era to the fifteenth century.

Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages

Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages PDF Author: Robert Mills
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022616926X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 421

Book Description
During the Middle Ages in Europe, some sexual and gendered behaviors were labeled “sodomitical” or evoked the use of ambiguous phrases such as the “unmentionable vice” or the “sin against nature.” How, though, did these categories enter the field of vision? How do you know a sodomite when you see one? In Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages, Robert Mills explores the relationship between sodomy and motifs of vision and visibility in medieval culture, on the one hand, and those categories we today call gender and sexuality, on the other. Challenging the view that ideas about sexual and gender dissidence were too confused to congeal into a coherent form in the Middle Ages, Mills demonstrates that sodomy had a rich, multimedia presence in the period—and that a flexible approach to questions of terminology sheds new light on the many forms this presence took. Among the topics that Mills covers are depictions of the practices of sodomites in illuminated Bibles; motifs of gender transformation and sex change as envisioned by medieval artists and commentators on Ovid; sexual relations in religious houses and other enclosed spaces; and the applicability of modern categories such as “transgender,” “butch” and “femme,” or “sexual orientation” to medieval culture. Taking in a multitude of images, texts, and methodologies, this book will be of interest to all scholars, regardless of discipline, who engage with gender and sexuality in their work.

Constructing Medieval Sexuality

Constructing Medieval Sexuality PDF Author:
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9781452903194
Category : Civilization, Medieval
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Book Description


The Bridling of Desire

The Bridling of Desire PDF Author: Pierre J. Payer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
The later Middle Ages saw the emergence of an integral theory of human sexuality, a systematic account of its origins, role, and significance in the divine plan. Instead of simply dismissing medieval views of sex as misogynist and guilt-ridden, Pierre Payer urges a re-examination of medieval writers' understanding of sexuality within the context of their cosmological perspective. He traces the developing consensus about what was thought to be the nature, purpose and morality of sex as conceived by writers and theologians during this period. Concentrating on the positive dimension of medieval thought on sexuality, Payer first examines views on Paradise, the Fall, and original sin and its transmission. There follows an extended discussion of marriage as the sole outlet for legitimate sexual intercourse. He then turns to the broader question of the control of sexual impulses and desires through the virtue of temperance. The book concludes with a description of virginity, which was seen to be the apex of temperance and the ideal of Christian living. Payer has assembled a vast number of textual sources from the late medieval period, presenting to the reader a variety of opinions, their development, and underlying presuppositions.

Gender and Sexuality in the Middle Ages

Gender and Sexuality in the Middle Ages PDF Author: Martha A. Brozyna
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786420421
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Book Description
Perceptions about gender and sexuality have shaped the lives of men and women in every known culture and in every period of history. To study these perceptions one must delve into the underlying religious, social, philosophical and scientific influences. Understanding gender and sexuality during the Middle Ages requires an examination of the ideas, laws and institutions of the time--for example, the regulations of the Christian church, the anatomical studies of the medieval medical community, the chronicles of the time and the social criticism found in medieval literature. This reader brings such documents from throughout the medieval world into one collection. Representing a diverse range of ethnic, geographic and religious backgrounds, documents of the late Roman, Germanic, Anglo-Norman, Mediterranean, Byzantine, Slavic, Jewish and Islamic identities are all included. The book's chapters are organized according to nine areas--the Bible; Christian thought; chronicles; law; biology, medicine and science; literature; witchcraft and heresy; Judaism; and Islam--allowing for comparative examination of different societies and periods of the Middle Ages.

Sex and Gender in Medieval and Renaissance Texts

Sex and Gender in Medieval and Renaissance Texts PDF Author: Barbara H. Gold
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791432464
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Book Description
Examines interrelated topics in Medieval and Renaissance Latin literature: the status of women as writers, the status of women as rhetorical figures, and the status of women in society from the fifth to the early seventeenth century.