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Seeing sodomy in the Middle Ages / Robert Mills

Author
Mills, Robert, 1973-
Published
Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2015.
Physical Description
xiii, 398 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 27 cm

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Contents
Introduction: Jerome in a dress -- Translating Sodom -- Transgender time -- The first sodomite -- The sex lives of monks -- Orientations -- Conclusions.
Summary
"During the Middle Ages in Europe, some sexual and gendered behaviors were labeled "sodomitical" or evoked the use of ambiguous phrases such as the "unmentionable vice" or the "sin against nature." How, though, did these categories enter the field of vision? How do you know a sodomite when you see one? In Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages, Robert Mills explores the relationship between sodomy and motifs of vision and visibility in medieval culture, on the one hand, and those categories we today call gender and sexuality, on the other. Challenging the view that ideas about sexual and gender dissidence were too confused to congeal into a coherent form in the Middle Ages, Mills demonstrates that sodomy had a rich, multimedia presence in the period--and that a flexible approach to questions of terminology sheds new light on the many forms this presence took. Among the topics that Mills covers are depictions of the practices of sodomites in illuminated Bibles; motifs of gender transformation and sex change as envisioned by medieval artists and commentators on Ovid; sexual relations in religious houses and other enclosed spaces; and the applicability of modern categories such as "transgender, " "butch" and "femme, " or "sexual orientation" to medieval culture."--Publisher's description.
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ISBN
9780226169125 (cloth ; alk. paper)
022616912X (cloth ; alk. paper)
Bibliography Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 355-382) .and index.
Source of Acquisition
Purchased with funds from the Edward J. and Eleanor Black Nichols Library Endowment Fund; 2015
Endowment Note
Edward J. and Eleanor Black Nichols Library Endowment Fund
View MARC record | catkey: 16418192