Università Roma Tre

The woman's body in the Christian imaginary: discourses and images from the Ancient and Medieval Christianity

The reflection on the female body and the manifold declinations of its instrumentalization, which has been set at the center of the contemporary debate by the feminist thought, is of current issue and controversy. How has the woman's body been represented by the Christian authors and the few Christian women writers during Ancient and Medieval Times? How has it been depicted inart ? The course aims to face the subject of the female body according to an historical perspective, considering such a body in its biological and cultural dimension, keeping in mind the most broadly shared medical and philosophical conceptions , the metaphoric language, the cultural models and the exegetical developments. Virgins, martyrs, mothers, martyrs, mothers, brides, widows, nuns: to each category corresponds a body, to whose plasmation contribute homilies of bishops, treatises on virginity, hagiographic novels, martyrs' passions, historiographical works, pictorial representations.
Students attending the course are required to write a short paper on a chosen topic .

For students who attend lectures
Kari Elisabeth Børresen, Emanuela Prinzivalli (a cura di), Le donne nello sguardo degli antichi autori cristiani, Trapani, Il Pozzo di Giacobbe, 2013
A collection of diverse primary sources around several major themes will be provided during the course

Students who are not able to attend the lectures have to read
Kari Elisabeth Børresen, Emanuela Prinzivalli (a cura di), Le donne nello sguardo degli antichi autori cristiani, Trapani, Il Pozzo di Giacobbe, 2013
and one of the following books:
Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity,Columbia University Press, 2008
Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women,University of California 1988.
Jacques Le Goff-Nicolas Truong, Une histoire du corps au Moyen Âge , Paris, L.Levi, 2003.
Aline Rousselle, Porneia : de la maîtrise du corps à la privation sensorielle, IIe-IVe siècles de l'ère chrétienne Paris , Presses universitaires de France , 1983

Women in Modern Christianity

Starting from the historiographical discussion on the relationship between the feminine and the sacred, the course intends to analyse models and experiences of the presence and role of women within Christian Churches, ecclesiastical institutions and religious life, highlighting their paths and their evolution in the last two centuries in conjunction with the epochal changes in society, customs and culture that have involved women and their social, cultural and religious status. Sources produced by women themselves or concerning them and historiographical debates on the presence and role of women in life and management of Churches and in the related spirituality will be taken into consideration.

- Source dossier provided by the teacher through the online bulletin board.
- PAOLA GAIOTTI DE BIASE, Vissuto religioso e secolarizzazione. Le donne nella “rivoluzione più lunga”, Roma, Studium, 2006.
- Donne cristiane e sacerdozio. Dalle origini all’età contemporanea, a cura di DINORA CORSI, Roma, Viella, 2004, pp. 217-271.