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.

An original study of Palestine in late antiquity, a time when the fortunes of the 'east' and the 'west' were intimately linked. Thousands of westerners flocked to what became a Christian holy land, while Jerusalem grew from a sleepy Roman town into an international centre of Christianity and ultimately into a centre of Islamic worship.

Götterbilder schaffen eine eigene Welt theologischer Reflexion und religiöser Praxis. Texte vermitteln Gottesbilder von hoher Komplexität. Bildliche Darstellungen müssen indessen Gottesbilder auf das Wesentliche reduzieren. Diesen Reduktionsprozess lediglich als Simplifizierung zu begreifen, wäre unangemessen. Vielmehr handelt es sich um einen Konzentrationsprozess, der durch die bewusst evozierte Vieldeutigkeit der Wahrnehmung eine neue Komplexität erzeugt. Nicht von ungefähr besteht zwischen der durch Bilder einerseits und durch Texte andererseits vermittelte Profilierung von Gottesvorstellungen eine erhebliche Diskrepanz. Die Ursachen dafür liegen natürlich primär in den unterschiedlichen Möglichkeiten der Darstellungsmedien. Doch Medien sind nicht nur Mittel zum Zweck, sondern überlegt gewählte Filter, die Wahrnehmung gezielt leiten sollen. Der vorliegende Band untersucht dieses Phänomen in Beiträgen grundsätzlicher Art und in materialen Präsentationen aus dem Bereich des Alten Orients, Griechenlands und der Welt des Hellenismus. Bewusst sind auch Beiträge aus dem Kontakt zwischen Christentum und Islam zum Thema Bildverehrung integriert worden. Dadurch wird deutlich, welche Kompensationsstrategien entwickelt werden, wo bildliche Repräsentationen dem theologischen Verdikt unterliegen. Der Band enthält achtzehn Beiträge von international bekannten Forschern in deutscher und englischer Sprache.

Building on a hermeneutic tradition in which accounts of carnal embodiment are overlooked, misunderstood, or underdeveloped, this work initiates a new field of study and concern. Carnal Hermeneutics provides a philosophical approach to the body as interpretation. Transcending the traditional dualism of rational understanding and embodied sensibility, the volume argues that our most carnal sensations are already interpretations. Because interpretation truly goes “all the way down,” carnal hermeneutics rejects the opposition of language to sensibility, word to flesh, text to body. In this volume, an impressive array of today’s preeminent philosophers seek to interpret the surplus of meaning that arises from our carnal embodiment, its role in our experience and understanding, and its engagement with the wider world.