1st Edition

Early Christian Dress Gender, Virtue, and Authority

By Kristi Upson-Saia Copyright 2011
186 Pages
by Routledge

186 Pages
by Routledge

186 Pages
by Routledge

Early Christian Dress is the first full-length monograph on the subject of dress in early Christianity. It pays attention to the ways in which dress expressed and shaped Christian identity, the role dress played in Christians’ rivalries with pagan neighbours, and especially to the ways in which notions of gender were culled and revised in the process. Although many scholars have argued that... Read more

Introduction  1. Elite Roman Women’s Dress in the Early Imperial Period  2. Scripting Christians’ Clothing and Grooming  3. Performance Anxiety: Dress and Gender Crises in Early Christian Asceticism  4. Narrating Cross-Dressing in Female Saints’ Lives  Conclusion

Biography

Kristi Upson-Saia is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Occidental College. She specializes in the history and literature of early Christianity, with a focus on the ways in which early Christian identities were constructed through bodily appearances and performances. Her research interests also include gender and sexuality, orthodoxy and heresy, and, representations of deformed, scarred, and stigmatized bodies.

'[T]his is a carefully edited book for which congratulations are due ... Upson-Saia's innovative focus on women's dress as the crucible where gender, virtue, and authority simmer and seethe will certainly fuel further research.'
– Bryn Mawr Classical Review