Motherhood in Antiquity

Dana Cooper is Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University, USA. Claire Phelan is an Associate Professor at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, USA. She regularly teaches courses on women's history and presents on issues relating to gender at professional conferences.

• 1. Introduction.- I. Motherhood and Religion.- 2. ‘I Arose a Mother in Israel:’ Motherhood as a Liberating Power in the Biblical Stories of Miriam and Deborah.- 3. Models of Devotion?: The Rhetoric of Ambivalence and Admonition in Late Antique and Early Christian Discourse on Women and Motherhood.- 4. Motherhood in the Ancient Indian Buddhist World: A Soteriological Path.- II. Motherhood and Politics.- 5. Mother knows Best: Motherhood and Succession in the Seleucid Realm.- 6. Mamaea’s Little Man: Alexander Severus, His Mother, and the Germanic War.- 7. Jingû: Narratives of Motherhood and Imperial Rule in Early Japan.- III. Motherhood and Identity.- 8. Earthly and Divine Mothers in Ancient Egypt.- 9. Bronze Age Beginnings: The Conceptualization of Motherhood in Prehistoric Europe.- 10. From Cybele to Artemis: Motherhood and Great Mothers of Ancient Anatolia.- 11. Motherhood, Personhood, Identity, and Place-making in Ancient Mesoamerica