The Perfect Servant: Eunuchs and the Social Construction of Gender in Byzantium (Электронная книга Google)The Perfect Servant reevaluates the place of eunuchs in Byzantium. Kathryn Ringrose uses the modern concept of gender as a social construct to identify eunuchs as a distinct gender and to illustrate how gender was defined in the Byzantine world. At the same time she explores the changing role of the eunuch in Byzantium from 600 to 1100. Accepted for generations as a legitimate and functional part of Byzantine civilization, eunuchs were prominent in both the imperial court and the church. They were distinctive in physical appearance, dress, and manner and were considered uniquely suited for important roles in Byzantine life. Transcending conventional notions of male and female, eunuchs lived outside of normal patterns of procreation and inheritance and were assigned a unique capacity for mediating across social and spiritual boundaries. This allowed them to perform tasks from which prominent men and women were constrained, making them, in essence, perfect servants. Written with precision and meticulously researched, The Perfect Servant will immediately take its place as a major study on Byzantium and the history of gender. |
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Review: The Perfect Servant: Eunuchs and the Social Construction of Gender in Byzantium
Пользовательский отзыв - Denise - GoodreadsOne of my favorite pieces of scholarly writing. A fascinating, well-researched, well-written introduction to the social roles eunuchs had in the Byzantine empire, as well as a thorough analysis of the ... Читать весь отзыв
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acculturation affect ambiguity Andrew angels appearance assumptions attributes Basil Basil II bearded body Byzantine culture Byzantine society Byzantine sources Byzantine world Byzantium castrated celibacy ceremonial chapter chief eunuch Chrysostom church Constantine Constantine VII Constantinople court eunuch Daniel Defense of Eunuchs defined different difficult discussion emperor empress escorted Euphratas figures find first flesh Galen gender categories gender construct God’s Greek Hagia Sophia hagiographical holy honored identified imperial important individuals John John Chrysostom Justinian Kedrenos koubikoularios language Late Antiquity Lekapenos Leo the Deacon male masculine Metrios Michael Michael Psellos monastery monk Narses Nikephoros Nikephoros Bryennios Niketas nuchs off offer office officials palace patriarch perfect servants physical Prokopios prophet Psellos reflected rhetorical roles Roman saint Samonas says Sergios served sexual Skyl social specific spiritual staff Staurakios story suggests Symeon Metaphrastes tenth century testicles Theophanes Theophanes the Confessor Theophylaktos tion tradition Vita of St women
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Стр. 114 - Not all men can receive this precept, but only those to whom it is given. 12For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.
Стр. 114 - For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my Sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant ; even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters : I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.
Стр. 114 - I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name which shall not be cut off.
Стр. 114 - Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, "The Lord will surely separate me from his people"; and let not the eunuch say, "Behold, I am a dry tree.
Стр. 232 - For the American Indians, occupational pursuits clearly occupy the spotlight, with dress/demeanor coming in a close second. Sexual object choice is part of the gender configuration, but its salience is low; so low that by itself it does not provoke the reclassification of the individual to a special status. In the Western system, the order of salience is virtually the reverse.
Стр. 245 - As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.
Стр. 245 - Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.
Стр. 246 - Murray, A Study of the Life of Andreas, the Fool for the Sake of Christ (Borna-Leipzig, 1910), as noted by L. Ryden, 'The Life of Basil the Younger and the Date of the Life of St. Andreas Salos', in Okeanos: Essays Presented to Ihor Sevfenko on His Sixtieth Birthday, ed.
Стр. 229 - L'histoire de la femme deguisee en moine et 1'evolution de la saintete feminine a Byzance,
Стр. 218 - In Nicholas Thomas and Caroline Humphrey, eds., Shamanism, History, and the State, 1-12.
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