Jesus and Addiction to Origins - Toward an Anthropocentric Study of Religion - Willi Braun
8. Sex, Gender and Empire: Virgins and Eunuchs in the Ancient Mediterranean World
Jesus and Addiction to Origins - Toward an Anthropocentric Study of Religion - Willi Braun
Willi Braun [+]
University of Alberta
Willi Braun is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of History and Classics and the Program in Religious Studies at the University of Alberta, Canada. He is the former President of the North American Association for the Study of Religion and also the past President of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies. Although a specialist in the writings and social formations of earliest Christianities in the Roman empire, his work also focuses on the methods and theories of the academic study of religion itself. He has published and presented his work widely and served as editor of a variety of books and journals, including his longtime role as editor of Method and Theory in the Study of Religion; most recently, he co-edited Reading J. Z. Smith: Interviews and Essay (Oxford, 2018).
Description
In light of the anti-familial figure of the eunuch-priest and the vestal virgin (both spectacular investments in celibacy), this chapter argues that the oft-supposed centrality and stability of “the family” in Greco-Roman antiquity belongs as much to the realm of ancient and modern desire and mythmaking than to historical reality.