Desire and Denial in Byzantium

Liz James, University of Sussex, UK Margaret Mullett, Mary B. Cunningham, Kathy L. Gaca, Aideen Hartney, Joseph A. Munitiz, Dirk Krausmuller, Peter Hatlie, Bernard Stolte, Antony Eastmond, Beatrice Caseau, Charles Barber, Kathryn M. Ringrose, Dion C. Smythe, Shaun Tougher, Marc Lauxtermann, John Hanson, Barabara Zeitler, Averil Cameron.

• Contents: Preface; Section I: Love Letters?: From Byzantium, with love, Margaret Mullett; ’Shutting the gates of the soul’: spiritual treatises on resisting the passions, Mary B. Cunningham; Section II: Do as your Father tells you: The sexual and social dangers of Pornai in the Septuagint Greek stratum of patristic Christian Greek thought, Kathy L. Gaca; Manly women and womanly men: the subintroductae and John Chrysostom, Aideen Hartney; Anastasios of Sinai’s teaching on body and soul, Joseph A. Munitiz; Divine sex: Patriarch Methodios’s concept of virginity, Dirk Krausmüller; The city a desert: Theodore of Stoudios on porneia, Peter Hatlie; Section III: Problems with Bodies: Desires denied: marriage, adultery and divorce in early Byzantine law, Bernard Stolte; Body vs column: the cults of St Symeon Stylites, Antony Eastmond; Christian bodies: the senses and early Byzantine Christianity, Béatrice Caseau; Writing on the body: memory, desire, and the holy in iconoclasm, Charles Barber; Section IV: Fine Manly Bodies: Passing the test of sanctity: denial of sexuality and involuntary castration, Kathryn M. Ringrose; In denial: same-sex desire in Byzantium, Dion C. Smythe; Michael III and Basil the Macedonian: just good friends?, Shaun Tougher; Section V: Byzantine Erotica: Ninth-century classicism and the erotic muse, Marc Lauxtermann; Erotic imagery on Byzantine ivory caskets, John Hanson; Ostentatio genitalium: displays of nudity in Byzantium, Barabara Zeitler; Section VI: Conclusion: Desire in Byzantium” the Ought and the Is, Averil Cameron; Index.

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