Readings that are underlined in blue can be accessed directly from the course website; readings underlined in red are available on digital reserve through Canvas. If you are logged in to Canvas, clicking on the link should take you directly to a PDF of the reading. Jennifer Glancy's Corporal Knowledge is available in digital form through Hollis; if you are logged into Hollis, the green link will take you directly to the PDF of the assigned chapter.

Readings are subject to change, especially if there are particular readings you (the students) would like to include.


Sept. 9: INTRODUCTIONS
What constitutes a body? A Christian body? An early Christian body?
In-class reading: "Life of Pelagios" (class handout); Mark 1 (class handout)

Sept. 16: BODIES IN CONTEXT
The political, social, cultural, and economic contexts in which bodies existed in the ancient Mediterranean world.
Secondary readings: Glancy, Corporal Knowledge, 3-23 (chapter 1); Brown, Body and Society, 5-32; Shaw, Burden of the Flesh, 27-78
Texts: Hippocratic text On the nature of man (selection); Aristotle, On the generation of animals (selection); *Soranus (selections); Galen, On the usefulness of parts (selection)

Sept. 23: PAULINE BODIES
The apostle Paul's challenging ideas about present and future ethical embodiment.
Secondary readings: Brown, Body and Society, 44-57; Glancy, Corporal Knowledge, 24-47 (chapter 2); *Dale Martin, The Corinthian Body, 163-97 and notes; *Laura Salah Nasrallah, Archaeology and the Letters of Paul, 40-75
Texts: 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philemon
 
Sept. 30: CHASTE & BROKEN BODIES
The high stakes of Christian embodiment as imagined in narratives of resistance.
Secondary readings: Brown, Body and Society, 65-82; Glancy, Corporal Knowledge, 48-80 (chapter 3); *Stephanie Cobb, Dying to be Men, 92-116; *Susan Hylen, A Modest Apostle, 71-90
Texts: *"Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas"; *Acts of Thecla; "Martyrs of Vienne and Lyons"
Midterm distributed
 
Oct. 7: GNOSTIC BODIES

More radical views of embodiment, grounded in complex Christian cosmologies, often with complex ethical consequences.
Secondary readings: Brown, Body and Society, 103-21, 190-209; *Jason BeDuhn, Manichean Body, 69-125; *Karen King, "Reading Sex and Gender in the Secret Revelation of John"; James Goehring, "Libertine or Liberated: Women in the So-Called Libertine Gnostic Communities"
Texts: Apocryphon of John; *Epiphanius, Panarion 26

 
Oct. 14: NO CLASS (Indigenous Peoples' Day)
Midterm due by 11:59pm on Friday, October 18
 
Oct. 21: FASTING BODIES

The voluntary assumption of fasting in a society in which food deprivation was endemic.
Secondary readings: Shaw, Burden of the Flesh, 79-128 
Texts: Tertullian, On Fasting; Porphyry, On Abstinence from Killing Animals, book 1
 
Oct. 28: VIRGIN BODIES
The rise of virginity as a Christian index of sanctity, particularly in relation to the Virgin Mary.
Secondary readings: Brown, Body and Society, 285-365; Glancy, Corporal Knowledge, 81-136 (chapter 4); *Julia Kelto Lillis, "Paradox in Partu: Verifying Virginity in the Protevangelium of James"
Texts: *Teresa Shaw, "Homily: On Virginity"; *Athanasius, "First Letter to Virgins"; *Protoevangelium of James
 
Nov. 4: CHRIST'S BODIES
Christ's unique body as problematic paradigm of present and future (resurrection) embodiment.
Secondary readings: Brown, Body and Society, 387-427; Shaw, Burden of the Flesh, 161-219
Texts: Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ; Gospel of Truth; Severus of Antioch, "Letter to Caesaria"; Augustine, City of God 22
 
Nov. 11: (UN)CLOTHED BODIES
Christians affirmation and subversion of ideas about dress to affirm and subvert ideas about society.
Secondary readings: *Kate Wilkinson, Women and Modesty in Late Antiquity (selection); *Alicia Batten, Carly Daniel-Hughes, and Kristi Upson-Saia, "What Shall We Wear?"
Texts: *"Life of Pelagios"; Jerome, Letter 22 (de virginitate servanda); "Life of Mary of Egypt"

 
Nov. 18: BODIES IN COLOR
Ancient constructions of physical and symbolic difference through skin color without "whiteness."
Secondary readings: Byron, Symbolic Blackness; *Candace Buckner, "Made in an Imperfect Image: Race, Ethnicity, Disability, and Infirmity in the Life of Aphou"
Texts: *Kathleen O'Brien Wicker, "Ethiopian Moses (Collected Source)"

Nov. 25: NO CLASS (SBL/AAR conference)
 
Dec. 2: BODIES OF ART (& CONCLUSIONS)
The (demonic?) images of gods and emperors and the (saintly?) mosaics and icons that interacted with people.
Secondary readings: *Patricia Cox Miller, Corporeal Imagination, 164-78 and notes; *Laura Salah Nasrallah, Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture, 249-95; Brown, Body and Society, xxi-lxvii
Texts: Clement of Alexandria, Protreptikos 4; John of Damascus, On Images I



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