Byzantine Bodies

Larisa Orlov Vilimonović is Research Associate in the Department of History at the University of Belgrade.She holds a PhD in Byzantine History from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. Her research focuses on gender, sexuality, embodiment and emotons in Byzantine culture. She is the author of Structure and Features of Anna Komnene’s Alexiad: Emergence of a Personal History (Amsterdam University Press, 2018). Shaun Tougher is Professor of Late Roman and Byzantine History at Cardiff University. He has a BA from Queen’s University Belfast and a PhD from the University of St Andrews. He works especially on dynastic history (primarily the Constantinian and Macedonian dynasties) and on gender and society (notably eunuchs, but also imperial women and questions of masculinity). His publications include The Reign of Leo VI (886-912) (Leiden, 1997), Julian the Apostate (Edinburgh, 2007), The Eunuch in Byzantine History and Society (London and New York, 2008), and The Roman Castrati: Eunuchs in the Roman Empire (London and New York, 2021).

• List of IllustrationsList of AbbreviationsNotes on ContributorsIntroduction: Byzantine Bodies: Gender, Desire and the Making of MeaningLarisa Orlov Vilimonović and Shaun TougherPart I: Deconstructing Paradigms, Contextualizing Bodies1. Gender Trouble in Byzantium: Uncovering Queer Bodies in the Christian EastLarisa Orlov Vilimonović, Jakov Đorđević2. Sanctifying Women’s Choices: Rethinking Byzantine Female Saints’ FreedomAshley Purpura3. Eunuchs of War and Imperial Eunuchs in Byzantium: New Cases and Perspectives on Gender, Trisexuation, and State Power (6th–7th c.)Georges Jablonski-SiderisPart II: Bodies between Text, Image, and Gender Performance4. Jesus Christ: Perfect Man?Liz James5. Rosy Cheek, Wrinkled Brow Body, Age and Gender in Byzantine ArtMati Meyer and Lora Webb6. Visions of Political Power, Ceremony, and Gender: The Case of Irene of AthensTiffany VanWinkoop7. A Tale of Two Basils: The Physical History of the ‘Macedonian DynastyShaun Tougher8. Bohemond’s Biceps: Male Beauty and the Female Gaze in the Alexiad of Anna KomneneMargaret MullettPart III: Bodies between Erotic Imagination and Rhetorical Ambiguity9. Theophylaktos Simokattes and the Eroto-Rhetorical Figuration of the Male BodySteven D. Smith10. An Undisciplined Masculine Body of Pleasure and Desire in a Letter of Theodoros DaphnopatesMark Masterson 11. Ambiguity of Temptation: Body and Desire in the Life of and Martyrdom of St. Eugenia from the Menologion of Symeon MetaphrastesLarisa Orlov Vilimonović12. Monk and the Erotic Gaze in the Byzantine East: The Case of the Chapel of St. George at the Hilandar MonasteryJakov Đorđević

Attending especially to marginal bodies in the medieval Christian East, these essays read gender and desire in materiality and doing, grounding abstractions of construction and performance.