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Record Nr. |
UNINA9910781881503321 |
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Autore |
Burrus Virginia |
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Titolo |
The sex lives of saints [[electronic resource] ] : an erotics of ancient hagiography / / Virginia Burrus |
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Pubbl/distr/stampa |
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Philadelphia, Pa., : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2004 |
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ISBN |
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1-283-21119-X |
9786613211194 |
0-8122-0072-1 |
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Descrizione fisica |
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1 online resource (223 p.) |
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Collana |
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Divinations : rereading late ancient religion |
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Disciplina |
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Soggetti |
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Sex - Religious aspects - Christianity - History of doctrines |
Christian hagiography - History - To 1500 |
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Lingua di pubblicazione |
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Formato |
Materiale a stampa |
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Livello bibliografico |
Monografia |
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Note generali |
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First paperback edition 2008. |
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Nota di bibliografia |
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Includes bibliographical references (p. [199]-208) and index. |
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Nota di contenuto |
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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 |
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Sommario/riassunto |
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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 |
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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. |
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