Note: All written assignments must be turned in to Sakai, and will be returned through Sakai.
Skip ahead to: LEADING CLASS; SHORT WRITTEN RESPONSES; BOOK/ARTICLE REVIEW; FINAL PAPER/PROJECT
LEADING CLASS
Each student will be responsible for leading part of a class (on some
days, more than one student will be responsibld; students may choose to
lead class in teams). During the student-led portion of the class, the
studet leader must:
a) introduce and explain a modern reading with special attention to its theoretical focus and relevance to the day's topic;
b) guide the class through a close reading of part or all of an ancient source informed by this modern reading
Class leaders are strongly encouragd to meet with the professor for guidance before leading class.
SHORT WRITTEN RESPONSES
There will be opportunities to turn in short written responses to specific prompts (below) during each week of class; students must turn in at least three
of these responses for credit. Written responses may be turned in for
regrading; all responses in their final form are due by the last day of
class.
Short resonse prompts
In all responses, try to refer directly to class readings for that week.
January 19: What aspects of Thecla's character do you think present-day readers would associate with and why?
January 26: Would you describe Blandina (in the "Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne") as a "well-behaved woman" in Ulrich's sense?
February 9: In what ways do you think women's lives in the first Christian centuries were similar or different to women's lives today?
February 16: Whose voice sounds more "realistic" to you: Perpetua's or Egeria's? Why do you think that is?
February 23: In what ways do you think ancient discussions of sexuality and discipline are similar to our own?
March 1: Why do you think sexual renunciation might be seen as feminist in the 1970s? In the 1990s? In the 2010s?
March 8: What resonances do you see between ancient discussions of clothing, modesty, and womanhood and modern attitudes?
March 22: How do women express power in the present, and do you think this mode of expression has changed since Christian antiquity?
March 29: Why would modern feminists be interested in heretics?
April 5: If we only had male-authored sources, could we still write a feminist history? How?
April 12: To what extent can you see ancient Christian text informing (or being informed by) modern discussions of trans issues?
April 19: What is the most feminist moment of Agora? What is the least feminist moment?
April 26: Why might modern feminist resists the Virgin Mary as a feminist role model?
BOOK/ARTICLE REVIEW
Note: This review is due on a Wednesday by 5pm.
Write a 750-1000 word review of a book or article from the list below
(if you find another article or book you may also write on it; please
clear your book or article with Professor Jacobs). In your review you
should answer the following questions:
1) what is the book's or article's main argument?
2) what ancient sources and modern theories does it employ?
3) is the overall argument persuasive (to whom)?
Any of the articles from: Boyarin, Daniel and Elizabeth Castelli (ed.). Journal of the History of Sexuality, special issue: Sexuality in Late Antiquity. 10.3-4 (2001).
Burrus, Virginia. "Reading Agnes: The Rhetoric of Gender in Ambrose and Prudentius." Journal of Early Christian Studies 3 (1995): 25-46.
Burrus, Viginia. "Word and Flesh: The Bodies and Sexuality of Ascetic Women in Christian Antiquity," Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 10 (1994): 27-51
Cameron, Averil, "Redrawing the Map: Early Christian Territory After Foucault," Journal of Roman Studies 76 (1986): 266-71
Cameron, Averil, "Early Christianity and the Discourse of Female Desire,"in L. J. Archer, S. Fischler and M. Wyke (eds.), Women in Ancient Societies (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994), 152-68
Clark, Elizabeth A., "Early Christian Women: Sources and
Interpretation," in That Gentle Strength, ed. Lydia Coon et al.
(Virginia, 1990), 19-33.
Clark, Elizabeth A., “Ideology, History, and the Construction of ‘Woman’ in Late Ancient Christianity,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 2 (1994) 155-184
Cobb, L. Stephanie. Dying to Be Men: Gender and Language in Early Christian Martyr Texts (Columbia, 2008)
Cooper, Kate. "Insinuations of Womanly Influence: An Aspect of the Christianization of the Roman Aristocracy," Journal of Roman Studies 82 (1992): 150-64
Cooper, Kate. Band of Angels: The Forgotten World of Early Christian Women (Overlook, 2014)
Foucault, Michel. "The Battle for Chastity," in Religion and Culture: Michel Foucault, ed. Jeremy Carrette, 188-97.
Jacobs, Andrew S. "A Family Affair: Marriage, Class, and Ethics in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles," Journal of Early Christian Studies 7 (1999): 105-38
Jacobs, Andrew S. "Writing Demetrias: Ascetic Logic in Ancient Christianity," Church History 69 (2000): 719-48
Kraemer, Ross Shepard. Her Share of the Blessings: Women's Religions Among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World (Oxford, 1992)
Krawiec, Rebecca. Shenoute and the Women of the White Monastery: Egyptian Monasticism in Late Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002)
Kuefler, Mathew. The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity (Chicago, 2001)
Leyerle, Blake. "Chrysostom on the Gaze." Journal of Early Christian Studies 1 (1993): 159-74.
Matthews, Shelly, "Thinking of Thecla: Issues in Feminist Historiography," Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 17 (2001): 39-55
Miller, Patricia Cox. "Is There a Harlot in this Text? Hagiography and the Grotesque." Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 33 (2003): 419-35.
Muehlberger, Ellen, "Simeon and Other Women in Theodoret’s Religious
History: Gender in the Representation of Late Ancient Christian
Asceticism," Journal of Early Christian Studies 23 (2015): 583-606
Pagels, Elaine. The Gnostic Gospels (Random House, 1979)
Salzman, Michele R. "Aristocratic Women: Conductors of Christianity in the Fourth Century?" 16.2 (1989): 207-20
Schroeder, Caroline T., "Queer Eye for the Ascetic Guy? Homoeroticism,
Children, and the Making of Monks in Late Antique Egypt," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 77 (2009): 333-47
Upson-Saia, Kristi. Early Christian Dress: Gender, Virtue, and Authority (Routledge, 2011)
vander Stichele, Caroline and Todd Penner, Contextualizing Gender in Early Christian Discourse: Thinking Beyond Thecla (Bloomsbury, 2009)
FINAL PAPER/PROJECT
Due by 5pm on May 12 to Sakai.
Students may choose from among the following types of final paper/project and must meet with the professor early in the semester to begin choosing a final paper/project topic:
a) Analytic book review.
Examine a recent or classic book of early Christian women's history
(including books we have read portions of for class). Would you
describe this work as "feminist"? What kind of feminism does it
represent (and to whom)? What primary sources does it use? What
theoretical lens does it apply? Whom do you imagine as the audience for
this book?
b) Primary text analysis.
Choose a specific ancient text (or group of texts) and subject it a
historical analysis from a feminist angle. Be very explicit about the
feminist perspective you are using in your analysis and keep in mind
what audience you imagine for this text. Your historical argument may
be directed to other historians, to modern audiences, or some
combination thereof. Your goal is to craft a persuasive feminist
historical analysis.
c) Thematic research project.
Choose a specific topic in early Christian history that you think would
benefit from a feminist historical analysis and choose a feminist
framework you think is both fitting and persuasive. Your topic should
be narrow enough that you can meaningfully research it during the
semester, and have accessible ancient sources (in translation) and
modern scholarly studies. You may simply provide an overview of the
topic from a feminist perspective or develop an original argument about
this topic.
d) Intellectual biography.
Choose one of the feminist historians we have studies during this
semester and attempt to craft an intellectual biography of her or him.
An intellectual biography includes: topics they have studied;
approaches they have used; contributions they have made; changes in
approach or ideology during their careers.
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