Overview

Much has been written about the contribution of ancient Greece to modern discourses of homosexuality, but Rome's significant rôle has been largely overlooked. Ancient Rome and the Construction of Modern Homosexual Identities explores the contested history of responses to Roman antiquity, covering areas such as literature, the visual arts, popular culture, scholarship, and pornography. Essays by scholars working across a number of disciplines analyse the demonization of Rome and attempts to write it out of the history of homosexuality by early activists such as John Addington Symonds, who believed that Rome had corrupted ideal (and idealized) 'Greek love' through its decadence and sexual licentiousness. The volume's contributors also investigate the identification with Rome by men and women who have sought an alternative ancestry for their desires. The volume asks what it means to look to Rome instead of Greece, theorizes the way in which Rome itself appropriates Greece, and explores the consequences of such appropriations and identifications, both ancient and modern. From learned discussions of lesbian cunnilingus in Renaissance commentaries on Martial and Juvenal, to disgust at the sexual excesses of the emperors, to the use of Rome by the early sexologists, to modern pornographic films that linger on the bodies of gladiators and slaves, Rome has been central to homosexual desires and experiences. By interrogating the desires that create engagements with the classical past, the volume illuminates both classical reception and the history of sexuality.

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9780199689729

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Reviews

his collection stands a ground-breaking and invaluable achievement in sexuality studies. By turning our attention from the reception of ancient Greek sexual discourses, about which countless tomes have been written, towards the reception of Romosexuality, Ingleheart has set the groundwork for subsequent studies. Indeed, this volume achieves - and surpasses - its stated goal and is well worth scholarly attention. Bartolo Natoli, Classical Journal Online

The timeliness of this collection of papers will be impressed upon every reader. While much has been written about Greece's contribution to modern discourses of homosexuality, Rome's significant role has either been overlooked or consigned to the dustbin of the history, with the Roman paradigm of sexuality being stereotyped as one in which unbridled lust and perversion reigned supreme...Roman homosexuality needs to be examined under a wide lens (9) and it is indeed such a lens that is applied in this collection of fifteen papers...I fully agree with the the editor in her Introduction that this series of papers makes an important contribution to classical reception studies. --Beert C. Verstraete, <em>Bryn Mawr Classical Review</em>

Ingleheart's volume is a fine addition to existing scholarship on homosexuality in the ancient world ... it constitutes an inspiring showcase of recent trends in scholarship and provides a useful starting-point for classicists, historians of sexuality and reception scholars alike. * Martin T. Dinter and Astrid Khoo, International Journal of the Classical Tradition * his collection stands a ground-breaking and invaluable achievement in sexuality studies. By turning our attention from the reception of ancient Greek sexual discourses, about which countless tomes have been written, towards the reception of Romosexuality, Ingleheart has set the groundwork for subsequent studies. Indeed, this volume achieves - and surpasses - its stated goal and is well worth scholarly attention. * Bartolo Natoli, Classical Journal Online *

Author Information

Jennifer Ingleheart is Senior Lecturer in Classics at Durham University.

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