The Sex Lives of Saints : An Erotics of Ancient Hagiography /
Burrus, Virginia
The Sex Lives of Saints : An Erotics of Ancient Hagiography / Virginia Burrus. - 1 online resource (224 p.) - Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion .
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction: Hagiography and the History of Sexuality -- Chapter 1. Fancying Hermits: Sublimation and the Arts of Romance -- Chapter 2. Dying for a Life: Martyrdom, Masochism, and Female (Auto)Biography -- Chapter 3. Hybrid Desire: Empire, Sadism, and the Soldier Saint -- Chapter 4. Secrets of Seduction: The Lives of Holy Harlots -- Postscript (Catching My Breath) -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments
restricted access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec
Has a repressive morality been the primary contribution of Christianity to the history of sexuality? The ascetic concerns that pervade ancient Christian texts would seem to support such a common assumption. Focusing on hagiographical literature, Virginia Burrus pursues a fresh path of interpretation, arguing that the early accounts of the lives of saints are not antierotic but rather convey a sublimely transgressive "countereroticism" that resists the marital, procreative ethic of sexuality found in other strands of Christian tradition.Without reducing the erotics of ancient hagiography to a single formula, The Sex Lives of Saints frames the broad historical, theological, and theoretical issues at stake in such a revisionist interpretation of ascetic eroticism, with particular reference to the work of Michel Foucault and Georges Bataille, David Halperin and Geoffrey Harpham, Leo Bersani and Jean Baudrillard. Burrus subsequently proceeds through close, performative readings of the earliest Lives of Saints, mostly dating to the late fourth and early fifth centuries-Jerome's Lives of Paul, Malchus, Hilarion, and Paula; Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Macrina; Augustine's portrait of Monica; Sulpicius Severus's Life of Martin; and the slightly later Lives of so-called harlot saints. Queer, s/m, and postcolonial theories are among the contemporary discourses that prove intriguingly resonant with an ancient art of "saintly" loving that remains, in Burrus's reading, promisingly mobile, diverse, and open-ended.
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
In English.
9780812220209 9780812200720
10.9783/9780812200720 doi
Christian hagiography--History--To 1500.
Sex--Religious aspects--Christianity--History of doctrines.
Religious Studies.
HISTORY / Ancient / General.
Ancient Studies. Gender Studies. Religion. Religious Studies. Women's Studies.
BT708 / .B885 2004eb
261.8/357
The Sex Lives of Saints : An Erotics of Ancient Hagiography / Virginia Burrus. - 1 online resource (224 p.) - Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion .
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction: Hagiography and the History of Sexuality -- Chapter 1. Fancying Hermits: Sublimation and the Arts of Romance -- Chapter 2. Dying for a Life: Martyrdom, Masochism, and Female (Auto)Biography -- Chapter 3. Hybrid Desire: Empire, Sadism, and the Soldier Saint -- Chapter 4. Secrets of Seduction: The Lives of Holy Harlots -- Postscript (Catching My Breath) -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments
restricted access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec
Has a repressive morality been the primary contribution of Christianity to the history of sexuality? The ascetic concerns that pervade ancient Christian texts would seem to support such a common assumption. Focusing on hagiographical literature, Virginia Burrus pursues a fresh path of interpretation, arguing that the early accounts of the lives of saints are not antierotic but rather convey a sublimely transgressive "countereroticism" that resists the marital, procreative ethic of sexuality found in other strands of Christian tradition.Without reducing the erotics of ancient hagiography to a single formula, The Sex Lives of Saints frames the broad historical, theological, and theoretical issues at stake in such a revisionist interpretation of ascetic eroticism, with particular reference to the work of Michel Foucault and Georges Bataille, David Halperin and Geoffrey Harpham, Leo Bersani and Jean Baudrillard. Burrus subsequently proceeds through close, performative readings of the earliest Lives of Saints, mostly dating to the late fourth and early fifth centuries-Jerome's Lives of Paul, Malchus, Hilarion, and Paula; Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Macrina; Augustine's portrait of Monica; Sulpicius Severus's Life of Martin; and the slightly later Lives of so-called harlot saints. Queer, s/m, and postcolonial theories are among the contemporary discourses that prove intriguingly resonant with an ancient art of "saintly" loving that remains, in Burrus's reading, promisingly mobile, diverse, and open-ended.
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
In English.
9780812220209 9780812200720
10.9783/9780812200720 doi
Christian hagiography--History--To 1500.
Sex--Religious aspects--Christianity--History of doctrines.
Religious Studies.
HISTORY / Ancient / General.
Ancient Studies. Gender Studies. Religion. Religious Studies. Women's Studies.
BT708 / .B885 2004eb
261.8/357