'… a model of careful selection and coherence; very few article collections are so well integrated and balanced.' Alexandra Cuffel, Macalester College

'Gender in the Early Medieval World brings together a collection of sixteen essays that place gender at the centre of discussions about politics, economics, religious practices, family and life rituals, in addition to more obvious gender questions about individual identity. This list shows the collection engages with a wide range of topics, but more than that, it indicates the editors' convincing view that gender is not just about sexual identity. This collection of essays convincingly shows that the field of gender studies is a fruitful one.' The German History Society

Gender analysis is one of the most probing ways to understand both power and cultural strategies in pre-industrial societies. In this book, sixteen scholars on the cutting edges of their disciplines explore the ideas and expressions of gender that characterised the centuries from c.300 to 900 in milieux ranging from York to Baghdad, via Rome and Constantinople. Deploying a variety of disciplines and perspectives, they draw on the evidence of material culture as well as texts to demonstrate the wide range of gender identities that informed the social, political and imaginary worlds of these centuries. The essays make clear that the fixed point in the gender systems of the period was constituted by the hegemonic masculinity of the ruling elite, marginalised groups often invisible as historical subjects in their own right were omnipresent in, and critical to, the gendered discourses which buttressed assertions of power.
Les mer
1. Introduction Julia M. H. Smith; Part I. Gender in Late antique, Byzantine and Islamic Societies: 2. Gender and ethnicity in the early middle ages Walter Pohl; 3. Clothes maketh the man: power dressing and elite masculinity in the later roman world Mary Harlow; 4. Social transformation, gender transformation: the court eunuch, 300–900 Shaun Tougher; 5. Sex, lies and textuality: the secret history of Prokopios and the rhetoric of gender in sixth-century Byzantium Leslie Brubaker; 6. Romance and reality in the Byzantine brideshows Martha Vinson; 7. Men, women and slaves in Abbasid society Julia Bray; 8. Gender and politics in the harem of al-Muqtadir Nadia Maria El Cheikh; Part II. Gender in Germanic Studies: 9. Dressing conservatively: women's brooches as markers of ethnic identity? Bonnie Effros; 10. Gendering courts in the early medieval west Janet L. Nelson; 11. Men, women and liturgical practice in the early medieval west Gisela Muschiol; 12. Gender and the patronage of culture in Merovingian Gaul Yitzhak Hen; 13. Genealogy defined by women: the case of the Pippinids Ian Wood; 14. Brideshows revisited: praise, slander and exegesis in the reign of the Empress Judith Mayke de Jong; 15. 'What is the word if not semen?' Priestly bodies in Carolingian exegesis Lynda Coon; 16. Negotiating gender, family and status in Anglo-Saxon burial practices, c.600–950 Dawn Hadley; Index.
Les mer
'… a model of careful selection and coherence; very few article collections are so well integrated and balanced.' Alexandra Cuffel, Macalester College
This book analyses changes in gender pattern to examine early medieval European culture and society.

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780521013277
Publisert
2004-11-11
Utgiver
Vendor
Cambridge University Press
Vekt
490 gr
Høyde
227 mm
Bredde
153 mm
Dybde
20 mm
Aldersnivå
P, U, 06, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
346

Om bidragsyterne

Leslie Brubaker is Reader in Byzantine Art History at the Centre for Byzantine Studies and Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity in the University of Birmingham. Her many publications on Byzantine culture include Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium (Cambridge, 1999) and Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era: The Sources (2001). Julia M. H. Smith is Reader in Mediaeval History at the University of St Andrews. She has published extensively on early medieval history and her books include Province and Empire: Brittany and the Carolingians (Cambridge, 1992) and EARLY Medieval Rome and the Christian West (editor, 2000).