Gender and the Body in the Ancient Mediterranean

Gender and the Body in the Ancient Mediterranean builds up an important source of interdisciplinary information for the study of gender and the body in history. The central and unifying theme of this volume is the body's relation to gender. Ranging over the formation of the gendered body in ancient Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome and Judea, the volume challenges the body as a sign of what is natural. The individual articles disclose that the surface of the ancient body is a crucial site for the display of gender difference, the body's examination and physical transformation or containment is revealed as fundamental to ancient societies' gendered practices of power. The volume demonstrates the central role of antiquity in the developing cultural formation of the gendered body as a concept and a practice in modern societies.

Maria Wyke is Professor of Latin at University College London. She is author of Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema and History and The Roman Mistress: Ancient and Modern Representations, and is now working on her next publication Caesar: A Life in Western Culture.