The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies – Gender, Asceticism, and Historiography

Dale B. Martin is Professor and Chair of Religious Studies at Yale University. Among his books are "Inventing Superstition: From the Hippocratics to the Christians" and "The Corinthian Body."Patricia Cox Miller is W. Earl Ledden Professor of Religion at Syracuse University. Among her books are "The Poetry of Thought in Late Antiquity: Essays in Imagination and Religion" and "Dreams in Late Antiquity: Studies in the Imagination of a Culture."

"The essays in The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies are all significant in their own rights, and collectively they provide an excellent portrait of the 'state of the art.' This book both charts the history of a generation of scholarship and points forward toward the next steps in the critical, theoretically inflected engagement with the cultural world of late antiquity."--Elizabeth Castelli, Associate Professor of Religion at Barnard College and author of Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making "This collection's foci--gender, asceticism, and historiography--outline the very engines of the cultural turn in the discipline and show early Christian studies at its most engaged with current trends throughout the humanities."--Derek Krueger, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro and author of Writing and Holiness: The Practice of Authorship in the Early Christian East "THis learned and sophisticated collection of essays takes self-consciously theoretical approach."--Jrnl for the Study of the New Testament, 28.5 (2006) "There is much to admire in The Cultural Turn, from its balance of literary and historical readings of the past to its disciplinary range and theoretical creativity."--Lynda L. Coon, The Catholic Historical Review "This collection of sixteen articles ... represents cutting edge scholarship by some of the most prominent researchers in the study of antiquity."--David M. Reis, Religious Studies Review "This thought-provoking collection contains a valuable bibliography and suits a wide audience."--Dilys N. Patterson, Studies in Religion "This learned and sophisticated collection of essays takes a self-consciously theoretical approach."--Loveday Alexander, Journal for the Study of the New Testament "Sixteen sharp and compelling cultural historical studies... Each of these essays is excellent, well-written, and impeccably annotated, and together they comprise a dazzling foray into the thriving field of late ancient cultural studies."-- Andrew S. Jacobs, Journal of the American Academy of Religion "The volume gives a good picture of some of the best of scholarship that is indebted to the 'cultural turn in late ancient studies'."-- Andrew Louth, Theology and Sexuality "An excellent collection of essays on Late Antique Christianity... This book is a must read for serious scholars of Late Antiquity, especially because the essays both explain and apply the method of cultural studies."-- Matthew Kraus, Bryn Mawr Classical Review "Sheds further light on the processes by which Christianity constructed itself throughout the later Roman empire, and, perhaps most importantly, counsel against viewing any text, image, or even role within the Church as a fixed or static concept."-- Aideen M. Hartney, Journal of Theolgical Studies

"This collection's foci--gender, asceticism, and historiography--outline the very engines of the cultural turn in the discipline and show early Christian studies at its most engaged with current trends throughout the humanities."--Derek Krueger, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro and author of "Writing and Holiness: The Practice of Authorship in the Early Christian East"

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction / Dale B. Martin 1
Gender
The Lady Appears: Materializations of "Woman" in Early Monastic Literature / David Brakke 25
No Friendly Letters: Augustine's Correspondence with Women / Maureen A. Tilley 40
On Mary's Voice: Gendered Words in Syriac Marian Tradition / Susan Ashbrook Harvey 63
Is There a Harlot in This Text?: Hagiography and the Grotesque / Patricia Cox Miller 87
Macrina's Tattoo / Virginia Burrus 103
Aestheticism
Rereading the Jovinianist Controversy: Aestheticism and Clerical Authority in Late Ancient Christianity / David G. Hunter 119
The Dark Side of Landscape: Ideology and Power in the Christian Myth of the Desert / James E. Goehring 136
Monks and Other Animals / Blake Leyerle 150
Historiography
Archives in the Fiction: Rabbinic Historiography and Church History / Daniel Boyarin 175
How to Read Heresiology / Averil Cameron 193
Ascetic Practice and the Genealogy of Heresy: Problems in Modern Scholarship and Ancient Textual Representation / Teresa M. Shaw 213
History, Fiction, and Figuralism in Book 8 of Augustine's Confessions / Mark Vessey 237
Hellenism and Historiography: Gregory of Nazianzus and Julian in Dialogue / Susanna Elm 258
Knowing Theodoret: Text and Self / Philip Rousseau 278
Damasus and the Invention of Early Christian Rome / Dennis E. Trout 298
Bibliography 317
Contributors 355
Index of Modern Authors 357
Index of Citations to Ancient Authors and Scriptures 360