Breastfeeding And Mothering In Antiquity And Early Byzantium

This volume offers the first comparative, interdisciplinary, and intercultural examination of the lactating woman – biological mother and othermother – in antiquity and early Byzantium. Adopting methodologies and knowledge deriving from a variety of disciplines, the volume’s contributors investigate the close interrelationship between a woman and her lactating breasts, as well as the social, ideological, theological, and medical meanings and uses of motherhood, childbirth, and breastfeeding, along with their visual and literary representations. Breastfeeding and the work of mothering are explored through the study of a great variety of sources, mainly works of Greek-speaking cultures, written and visual, anonymous and eponymous, which were mostly produced between the first and the seventh century AD. Due to their multiple interdisciplinary dimensions, ancient and early Byzantine lactating women are approached through three interconnected thematic strands having a twofold focus: society and ideology, medicine and practice, and art and literature. By developing the model of the lactating woman, the volume offers a new analytical framework for understanding a significant part of the still unwritten cultural history of the period. At the same time, the volume significantly contributes to the emerging fields of breast and motherhood studies. The new and significant knowledge generated in the fields of ancient and Byzantine studies may also prove useful for cultural historians in general and other disciplines, such as literary studies, art history, history of medicine, philosophy, theology, sociology, anthropology, and gender studies.

This edited collection examines concepts and realities of motherhood in the ancient world. The collection uses essays on the Roman Empire, Mesoamerica, the Philippines, Egypt, and India to emphasize the concept of motherhood as a worldwide phenomenon and experience. While covering a wide geographical range, the editors arranged the collection thematically to explore themes including the relationship between the mother, particularly ruling mothers, and children and the mother in real life and legend. Some essays explore related issues, such as adaptation and child custody after divorce in ancient Egypt and the mother in religious culture of late antiquity and the ancient Buddhist Indian world. The contributors utilize a variety of methodologies and approaches including textual analysis and archaeological analysis in addition to traditional historical methodology.

The premise of this volume is that the ubiquity of lactation imagery in early modern visual culture and the discourse on breastfeeding in humanist, religious, medical, and literary writings is a distinct cultural phenomenon that deserves systematic study. Chapters by art historians, social and legal historians, historians of science, and literary scholars explore some of the ambiguities and contradictions surrounding the issue, and point to the need for further study, in particular in the realm of lactation imagery in the visual arts. This volume builds on existing scholarship on representations of the breast, the iconography of the Madonna Lactans, allegories of abundance, nature, and charity, women mystics' food-centered practices of devotion, the ubiquitous practice of wet-nursing, and medical theories of conception. It is informed by studies on queer kinship in early modern Europe, notions of sacred eroticism in pre-tridentine Catholicism, feminist investigations of breastfeeding as a sexual practice, and by anthropological and historical scholarship on milk exchange and ritual kinship in ancient Mediterranean and medieval Islamic societies. Proposing a variety of different methods and analytical frameworks within which to consider instances of lactation imagery, breastfeeding practices, and their textual references, this volume also offers tools to support further research on the topic.

War in Eleventh-Century Byzantium presents new insights and critical approaches to warfare between the Byzantine Empire and its neighbours during the eleventh century. Modern historians have identified the eleventh century as a landmark era in Byzantine history. This was a period of invasions, political tumult, financial crisis and social disruption, but it was also a time of cultural and intellectual innovation and achievement. Despite this, the subject of warfare during this period remains underexplored. Addressing an important gap in the historiography of Byzantium, the volume argues that the eleventh century was a period of important geo-political change, when the Byzantine Empire was attacked on all sides, and its frontiers were breached. This book is valuable reading for scholars and students interested in Byzantium history and military history.

This groundbreaking reconceptualization of attachment theory brings together leading scholars from psychology, anthropology and related fields to reformulate the theory to fit the cultural realities of our world. It will be of particular interest to scholars and graduate students interested in developmental psychology, developmental anthropology, evolutionary biology and cross-cultural psychology.

This book studies Romanos' lively and dramatic hymns, highlighting especially the relationship between theological themes and performative rhetoric.

Byzantine Childhood examines the intricacies of growing up in medieval Byzantium, children’s everyday experiences, and their agency. By piecing together a wide range of sources and utilising several methodological approaches inspired by intersectionality, history from below and microhistory, it analyses the life course of Byzantine boys and girls and how medieval Byzantine society perceived and treated them according to societal and cultural expectations surrounding age, gender, and status. Ultimately, it seeks to reconstruct a more plausible picture of the everyday life of children, one of the most vulnerable social groups throughout history and often a neglected subject in scholarship. Written in a lively and engaging manner, this book is necessary reading for scholars and students of Byzantine history, as well as those interested in the history of childhood and the family.