![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrj(I explain the LHMP here and provide a cumulative index.)
The project has been spending a great deal of time recently looking at the Early Modern period and northern Europe. So for a little balance I selected this collection of papers covering classical Greece. As the subtitle indicates, the focus here is not solely on homoerotic themes, although a majority of the papers address this aspect explicitly. But when looking for historic contexts in which romantic and erotic relationships between women could have flourished--or at least “hidden in plain sight”--the segregation of society into men’s and women’s sphere’s is fertile ground. Sappho’s poems hint at the relationships and desires that could be nourished by an all-female community. This is not to discount the sexist and even misogynistic nature of ancient Greek society, but rather to point out that the official structures and hierarchies are not the only story.
* * *
Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin. “Introduction” in Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin & Lisa Auanger eds. 2002. Among Women: From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World. University of Texas Press, Austin. ISBN 0-29-77113-4
This collection is somewhat unusual for its topic both in being interdisciplinary and in focusing exclusively on women’s relationships with other women. The introduction notes that with the exception of Brooten (1996) and the cottage industry of Sappho studies, there has been extremely little research published on female homoeroticism in antiquity, especially in contrast to the attention directed at male homoeroticism.
This field is hampered by the lack of direct, unmediated data on the lives of ordinary women. Art and literature present a carefully deliberate picture and, with very few exceptions, one that is filtered through men. Given this, women’s interactions exclusive of men are even harder to study. Describing the focus of the collection as “homosocial” presents no problems, but labeling the content as “homoerotic” as opposed to the various other possible options required working through the connotations and scholarly baggage of possibilities such as “homosexual” or “lesbian”. “Erotic” is more compatible with the clear evidence for desire, but the more ambiguous evidence for sexual activity, per se. The author notes that a strict focus on genital sexuality would erase the vast majority of evidence for homoerotic desire.
Rabinowitz spends several pages reviewing the history of the study of antiquity and the inseparability of ideology from historic interpretation. The uses to which ancient Greek history have been put by modern scholars are unarguable and varied. The desire of western scholars to claim ancient Greece as the origin and mirror of modern western society finds hurdles in the position of women in that society. The lower social position of women and their seclusion from public life were often “orientalized” as a way of displacing the contradiction onto an Other, apart from those noble paragons of freedom and democracy.
Another aspect of ideological interference in classical studies was the practice of suppressing or segregating material related to overt sexuality, such as Pompeiian pornographic wall paintings, or pictorial vases with sexual content. A clear contrast can be seen in treatments of male and female Greek homosexuality, with the men elevated to a noble ideal while women's homoerotic activities were viewed as part and parcel of an orientalized harem-like seclusion. There were regular and repeated attempts to “reclaim” the undeniable genius of Sappho from this dismissal by denying the erotic nature of her work and framing her simply as a beloved schoolmistress. This ideological history does not excuse any bias in modern scholarship, but it does place it in context.
When looking at ancient Greek and Roman sexual practices and attitudes, it is crucial to remain aware that heterosexuality shows no more continuity between the ancient and modern worlds that homosexuality does. In this context, Rabinowitz looks at modern approaches to “lesbians” in antiquity and Sappho in particular as a caution against ideologies looking to claim them for one team or another. The final part of the introduction gives a brief summary of the topics of the various papers.
The project has been spending a great deal of time recently looking at the Early Modern period and northern Europe. So for a little balance I selected this collection of papers covering classical Greece. As the subtitle indicates, the focus here is not solely on homoerotic themes, although a majority of the papers address this aspect explicitly. But when looking for historic contexts in which romantic and erotic relationships between women could have flourished--or at least “hidden in plain sight”--the segregation of society into men’s and women’s sphere’s is fertile ground. Sappho’s poems hint at the relationships and desires that could be nourished by an all-female community. This is not to discount the sexist and even misogynistic nature of ancient Greek society, but rather to point out that the official structures and hierarchies are not the only story.
* * *
Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin. “Introduction” in Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin & Lisa Auanger eds. 2002. Among Women: From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World. University of Texas Press, Austin. ISBN 0-29-77113-4
This collection is somewhat unusual for its topic both in being interdisciplinary and in focusing exclusively on women’s relationships with other women. The introduction notes that with the exception of Brooten (1996) and the cottage industry of Sappho studies, there has been extremely little research published on female homoeroticism in antiquity, especially in contrast to the attention directed at male homoeroticism.
This field is hampered by the lack of direct, unmediated data on the lives of ordinary women. Art and literature present a carefully deliberate picture and, with very few exceptions, one that is filtered through men. Given this, women’s interactions exclusive of men are even harder to study. Describing the focus of the collection as “homosocial” presents no problems, but labeling the content as “homoerotic” as opposed to the various other possible options required working through the connotations and scholarly baggage of possibilities such as “homosexual” or “lesbian”. “Erotic” is more compatible with the clear evidence for desire, but the more ambiguous evidence for sexual activity, per se. The author notes that a strict focus on genital sexuality would erase the vast majority of evidence for homoerotic desire.
Rabinowitz spends several pages reviewing the history of the study of antiquity and the inseparability of ideology from historic interpretation. The uses to which ancient Greek history have been put by modern scholars are unarguable and varied. The desire of western scholars to claim ancient Greece as the origin and mirror of modern western society finds hurdles in the position of women in that society. The lower social position of women and their seclusion from public life were often “orientalized” as a way of displacing the contradiction onto an Other, apart from those noble paragons of freedom and democracy.
Another aspect of ideological interference in classical studies was the practice of suppressing or segregating material related to overt sexuality, such as Pompeiian pornographic wall paintings, or pictorial vases with sexual content. A clear contrast can be seen in treatments of male and female Greek homosexuality, with the men elevated to a noble ideal while women's homoerotic activities were viewed as part and parcel of an orientalized harem-like seclusion. There were regular and repeated attempts to “reclaim” the undeniable genius of Sappho from this dismissal by denying the erotic nature of her work and framing her simply as a beloved schoolmistress. This ideological history does not excuse any bias in modern scholarship, but it does place it in context.
When looking at ancient Greek and Roman sexual practices and attitudes, it is crucial to remain aware that heterosexuality shows no more continuity between the ancient and modern worlds that homosexuality does. In this context, Rabinowitz looks at modern approaches to “lesbians” in antiquity and Sappho in particular as a caution against ideologies looking to claim them for one team or another. The final part of the introduction gives a brief summary of the topics of the various papers.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-12-19 06:59 pm (UTC)--edit: missed a typo, naturally
no subject
Date: 2014-12-19 08:05 pm (UTC)One of these days you'll have to come visit me and then you'll understand just how easy it is to lose track of what books I own.
I most often think about that historic discontinuity thing from the other side: pretty much nobody writing historic straight romance worries about the massive differences in how historic and modern cultures treated desire, romance, eroticism, and life expectations. And yet the same approach to queer characters in history is often met with "it's not historically accurate." While I prefer my historic fiction to be fairly well-grounded in history, I don't see that it should be required to be MORE accurate than straight fiction.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-19 08:31 pm (UTC)I think when people write straight historical romances, the laziness around the discontinuities in culture with respect to affection, desire, and connection means the authors lose so many opportunites to make richer and more interesting stories. If you're dealing with a time and place which does not have the same construction of romantic love as some of us do here and now, what are those people thinking and feeling about their emotional attractions and physical desires? That's where the yummy stuff of a story is going to develop.
There's always a place for fanciful imagining -- like "well, what if we had a situation where people wore these clothes but they had these other attitudes towards gender? What would that look like?" but it's so much richer if it's more informed, even if what you're going to do is turn everything on its head.