1st Edition

The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Sexuality in Byzantium

Edited By Mati Meyer, Charis Messis Copyright 2024
548 Pages 42 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

548 Pages 42 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

548 Pages 42 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This Handbook is the first to consider the interrelated subjects of gender and sexuality in the Eastern Roman Empire from an interdisciplinary perspective. Drawing on both modern theories and Byzantine perceptions, and considering multiple periods and religions (Eastern Orthodox, Islamic, and Jewish), it provides evidentiary textual and visual material support for an analysis of the two linked... Read more

Foreword: An Octogenarian Welcome

Judith Herrin

 

An Introduction: Gender and Sex(uality) in Byzantium?

Mati Meyer and Charis Messis

 

Part I.              Gendering Thinking

 

Chapter 1        Framing Gender I: Scientific and Religious Discourses

Charis Messis

 

Chapter 2        Framing Gender II: Paradigms of Social Gender

Lynda Garland

 

Chapter 3        Reading Gender Variance

Roland Betancourt

 

Part II.            Practicing Gender and Sexuality

 

Chapter 4        Section Intro: Contextualizing Gender in Byzantine Society and Politics

Leonora Neville

 

Chapter 5        Practices of Religious and Social Constructions of Gender

Damien Casey and Bronwen Neils

 

Chapter 6       Childhood and Gender

Béatrice Caseau

 

Chapter 7        Women and Trade from the Ninth to the Fifteenth Century: Some Remarks

Maria Gerolymatou

 

Chapter 8      Materiality Gendered

Brigitte Pitarakis

 

Chapter 9        Gendering Cooking: The Case of Mageiros

Ilias Anagnostakis and Maria Leontsini

 

Chapter 10      Gender, Sexuality and Marriage in Late Byzantium

Patrick Viscuso

 

Chapter 11      Gender and Extramarital Sexuality: Adultery, Fornication, Prostitution

Eleftheria Papagianni

 

Chapter 12      Gender and Transgressive Sexuality: The Case of Homosexual Practices

Charis Messis

 

Chapter 13      Gender and the Perception of the Ethnic ‘Other’

Anthony Kaldellis

  

Chapter 14      Judaism and Byzantium

Joshua David Holo

 

Part III.           Performing Gender and Sexuality

 

Chapter 15      Section Intro: Configurations of Gender: Femininity, Masculinity, Sexuality, Same-Sex Love in Text and Visual Arts

Leslie Brubaker

 

Chapter 16       Fleshing Out the Sexed and Gendered Body in Art

Mati Meyer and Lora Ellen Webb

 

Chapter 17       Resurrected, Blessed, or Damned: The End of Time – Texts and Material Culture/Visual Art

Eirini Afentoulidou

 

Chapter 18      Gender (and Sexuality) in Byzantine Literature

Stratis Papaioannou

 

Chapter 19      Centaurs at the Wedding: The Desiring Gaze and Visuality

Diliana Angelova

 

Chapter 20      Gender in the Visual Culture of the Early and Middle Byzantine Imperial Court

Alicia Walker

 

Chapter 21      Negotiating Gender Identity through the Visual Arts

Maria Parani

 

Chapter 22      Gender and Fashion

Bente Kiilerich

 

Chapter 23      Gendered Emotions in Byzantine Narrative Literature

Stavroula Constantinou

 

Chapter 24      Gendering Emotion in Art

Henry Maguire

 

Chapter 25      Singing and Performing Gender in the Sacred Space: Music and Theatre

Przemysław Marciniak and Andrew Walker White

 

Redefining Gender in Byzantium: Future Directions of Research

Liz James

Biography

Mati Meyer received her PhD from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is a faculty member at the Open University of Israel. She has published extensively in articles and a monograph and co‑edited books on women, realia, emotions, corporeality, gender and sexuality, and biblical reception in Byzantine art, including Emotions and Gender in Byzantine Culture, edited by Mati Meyer and Stavroula Constantinou (2018) and Between Judaism and Christianity: Art‑Historical Essays in Honor of Elisheva (Elisabeth) Revel Neher, edited by Katrin Kogman‑Appel and Mati Meyer (2009).

Charis Messis holds a PhD in Byzantine Studies from Écoles des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and a habilitation from the Sorbonne University. He is now teaching Byzantine Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. His research interests concern Byzantine history and literature, especially the history of gender, along with other social and anthropological aspects of the Byzantine world. He is author and co-editor of several books and articles, including Storytelling in Byzantium: Narratological Approaches to Byzantine Texts and Images, edited by C. Messis, M. Mullett, and I. Nilsson (2018).