Ancient Rome and the Construction of Modern Homosexual Identities

Edited by Jennifer Ingleheart

Classical Presences

Provides an historical study of why figures such as Roman gladiators, slaves, and legionaries, or the emperor Hadrian and his beloved Antinous helped to form modern queer identities and still hold a place in the gay imagination today
Features fifteen essays written by international experts on Roman homosexuality and its reception
Explores a neglected topic from a variety of angles, such as literature, art, popular culture, scholarship, and pornography

Ancient Rome and the Construction of Modern Homosexual Identities

Edited by Jennifer Ingleheart

Description

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.

Ancient Rome and the Construction of Modern Homosexual Identities

Edited by Jennifer Ingleheart

Classical Presences

Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
List of Contributors
Introduction: Romosexuality: Rome, Homosexuality, Reception, Jennifer Ingleheart
1: Lesbian Philology in Early Print Commentaries on Juvenal and Martial, Marc D. Schachter
2: The Invention of (Thracian) Homosexuality: the Ovidian Orpheus in the English Renaissance, Jennifer Ingleheart
3: Winckelmann's Legacy: Aesthetics, Decorum, and the Hellenization of Rome in the Eighteenth Century Reception of Homosexuality, Matthew Fox
4: 'Of that I know many examples ...': On the Relationship of Greek Theory and Roman Practices in Karl Heinrich Ulrichs' Writings on the Third Sex, Sebastian Matzner
5: The Reception of Rome in English Sexology, Jana Funke and Rebecca Langlands
6: Roman Receptions/Receptions of Rome: Walter Pater's Marius the Epicurean, Daniel Orrells
7: Putting the Roman Back into Romance: The Subversive Case of the Anonymous Teleny, Jennifer Ingleheart
8: Sex and the City: Petronius' Satyrica and Gore Vidal's The City and the Pillar, Nikolai Endres
9: Roman Homosexuality in Historical Fiction from Robert Graves to Steven Saylor, Craig Williams
10: 'Gay' Pompeii: Pompeian Art and Homosexuality in the Early Twentieth Century, Sarah Levin-Richardson
11: The Role of Roman Artefacts in E. P. Warren's 'Paederastic Evangel', Jennifer Grove
12: Rom(e)-antic Visions: Collecting, Display and Homosexual Self-fashioning, Caroline Vout
13: The Erotic Eye: Cinema, Classicism, and the Sexual Subject, Alastair J. L. Blanshard
14: The Kisses of Juventius and Policing the Boundaries of Masculinity: The Case of Catullus, Ralph J. Hexter
15: 'Too Gross for Our Present Notions of Propriety': Roman Homosexuality in Two Nineteenth-century Translations of Martial's Epigrams, Craig Williams
References
General Index
Index of Classical Authors Cited

Ancient Rome and the Construction of Modern Homosexual Identities

Edited by Jennifer Ingleheart

Classical Presences

Author Information

Edited by Jennifer Ingleheart, Senior Lecturer in Classics, Durham University

Jennifer Ingleheart is Senior Lecturer in Classics at Durham University.

Contributors:

Alastair J. L. Blanshard, University of Queensland
Nikolai Endres, Western Kentucky University
Matthew Fox, University of Glasgow
Jana Funke, University of Exeter
Jennifer Grove, University of Exeter
Ralph J. Hexter, University of California, Davis
Jennifer Ingleheart, Durham University
Rebecca Langlands, University of Exeter
Sarah Levin-Richardson, University of Washington
Sebastian Matzner, University of Exeter
Daniel Orrells, University of Warwick
Marc D. Schachter, Durham University
Caroline Vout, University of Cambridge
Craig Williams, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Ancient Rome and the Construction of Modern Homosexual Identities

Edited by Jennifer Ingleheart

Classical Presences

Reviews and Awards

"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

Ancient Rome and the Construction of Modern Homosexual Identities

Edited by Jennifer Ingleheart

Classical Presences

From Our Blog

What have the Romans ever done for us? LGBT identities and ancient Rome

What have the Romans ever done for us? Ancient Rome is well known for its contribution to the modern world in areas such as sanitation, aqueducts, and roads, but the extent to which it has shaped modern thinking about sexual identity is not nearly so widely recognized.

Posted on November 4, 2015

Read the blog post