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Tonight I'm here for 'Rethinking Byzantine Masculinities: Gender, Sexuality, Emotions, Devotion' with @MarkJMasterson, Derek Krueger, Claudia Rapp, and Shaun Tougher. I've been looking forward to this!
MM how to read desire between men and not over-read the evidence, but still to do justice to the evidence. ST gender of eunuchs & sexuality; queer middle ages conference in NY '98, v empowering & important event
Also Byzantine events centred on eunuchs, gender and sexuality. Boswell On the Marriage of Likeness; Ruth Macrides on kinship, spiritual brotherhood. CR approach comes from reading monastic lit, not looking for masculinities or carnality
CR remains an open question - how to deal with subject & subjectivity. Boswell? What about Kenneth Dover on Greek Sexuality? DK early formation of mens studies in Byzantium was lagging; Amy Richlin was miles ahead in the early 90s
DK to ST what's happening with eunuch studies currently? How has the relationship between eunuchs and masculinity changed over time? Kathryn Ringrose took gendered focus on eunuchs; ST eunuchs has opened up study of Byz men more broadly, are Byz men so different?
Challenge stereotypical perceptions. MM in order to understand Byz court and ascetic masculinity - need to consider eunuchs because they're so high-profile. DK to CR what does prayer life tell us about men, what did they pray for? CR did they pray differently from women?
CR very difficult to say; liturgical prayer books show person praying as priest. Praying for women, especially in childbirth & difficult labour; in attendance with midwives and other relatives. How do priestly family works? How does a priest articulate identity as a priest in a
village out in the field? Through clothing? Sharon Costells work on Christianity at the village level v. good here. How do we fill gaps in evidence? From our own experience? Other later historical sources? How do we bring together disparate pieces of evidence and make them speak
to each other? DK distinction betweek celibate and non-celibate Byzantine priests. Social assumptions about how hierarchies work translate into the monastery; it isn't a place to be entirely separated from gendered dynamics in society
DK to ST resistance to research? ST changing reception; largely positive response, moving into older generation. Book on Roman eunuchs as a prequel to Byzantine eunuchs. Gender not quite at the forefront of research. Society has shifted a lot since research began; intersex and
trans identity and men generally has changed. DK part of middle generation; pioneers before us and generation beyond carrying things forward, ie @ProfBetancourt Roland Betancourt's work, women disguised as monks is part of trans history.
MM general positive reception of work; against some orthodoxies such as penetration model, work hasn't challenged received ideas entirely. Advances in approaching scholarly pers from trans is v. useful and complex; prepared to participate, & shut up & listen
DK to CR reception of work; query by two men who live together in same household in a committed relationship, but for social reasons one wants to marry his partners sister. Acceptability, not requiring comment? 11/12th century? ST Life of Basil the Younger and issue of men living
together, and relationships between men living together, lay piety, men don't necessarily get married, Basil II most famous example of that. Homosociality, exciting and interesting area, following MM's work. CR shift in scholarship from exclusive focus on sexual acts to wider
thinking about same-sex desire, homosociality, is AIDS crisis of 90s in background? DK same-sex desire didn't turn into conversation about sex, sexual pleasure, sexual acts. Stopped asking ques motivated by prurient interest, moved towards more dignified approach
MM penitentials and what men are doing with their bodies, how does that relate to wider carnal language? Have to read across the genres, be careful not to read language of desire as formal in for ie. epistolography.
DK where is the field going next? ST more wider perspectives on Byz masc; still to cover fundamentals. DK reintegration of eunuchs into society - more to do. DK to ST what percentage of Byz families had a eunuch? Hard to say!!! Written about as familiar, coming from within
the empire and not as imported slaves. Long view: eunuchs are deeply embedded in Roman experience. CR more on Foucault. How does thinking about men/masc help us to understand Byz?
DK experience of martyrdom masculinsed women and virilised men; Gregory of Nyssa on Macrina; notion that holiness confers transcendence of gender. Unclear connection between gender and holiness in other contexts such as joining a monastery.
DK does the masculine authority writing the text violently misgender the subject? What kind of gendering or misgendering do we do in replicating language? MM Pelagia/pelagios and gender reveal; what does that say about ascetic manhood that appears androgynous?
DK view that monastic life is supposed to entirely transcend Byz gender is difficult to sustain; Christ took on a gendered body, present throughout his entire body including his penis. To doubt this was to doubt the Incarnation and was heretical. Monks were supposed to
reencounter gender without sexual desire. CR how is the male identity of monks configured without the binary opposite of women? Beards are hugely important; singing in a masculine voice, creating body of sound in church together.
Amy Richlin is begging for a Byzantine sourcebook for classicists! [My mind is blown].
ST long history of eunuch commanders in Byz, Eutropius is fourth century. Byz concepts of masc compared to notions of chivalry in west? DK reliquaries and seals evidence of devotion for military men, dedicated to the virgin, and to military saints like the Theodores
What kind of devotional lives did men have, and how does that intersect with masculinity? [no one likes the definition ques!] MM approaches masculinities, emphasises length of period and changing concepts
Relationships between uncastrated men and eunuchs; is there textual evidence of erotic relationships between two or more eunuchs? Ques about LGBTQ+ current awareness and anachronism; careful documentation and suggestions
DK parallels with women and feminism; how is womenness constructed, how does being a woman have a history in itself? We never had to say where are the men? What can Byz offer LGBTQ+ understandings in the present? Negative assumptions, Byz homophobia not what you would expect.
