Intersecting Inequalities: The Representation of Religious, Gender, and Sexual Identities in the Life of Pelagia
Repentant harlots who became trans saints presented Byzantine hagiographers with a challenge. Thought to exhibit a lack of self-control and the excessive sexuality, associated with women, and sex workers in particular, - a subject of great concern for monastic authors - how could members of this sti...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2021
|
| In: |
Review of ecumenical studies
Year: 2021, Volume: 13, Issue: 3, Pages: 419-436 |
| IxTheo Classification: | FD Contextual theology KAB Church history 30-500; early Christianity KCA Monasticism; religious orders KCD Hagiography; saints NBE Anthropology NCF Sexual ethics |
| Further subjects: | B
Pelagios / Pelagia
B Masculinity B Sanctity B Exemplarity B Byzantium B Hagiography B non-binary B trans saints B religion and gender |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | Repentant harlots who became trans saints presented Byzantine hagiographers with a challenge. Thought to exhibit a lack of self-control and the excessive sexuality, associated with women, and sex workers in particular, - a subject of great concern for monastic authors - how could members of this stigmatized group achieve the standards of Christian piety, let alone saintly behavior? In portraying its fictional protagonist as an exemplum of masculine virtues in the context of nascent Palestinian monasticism, the anonymous Life of Pelagia highlights the non-binariness of social identities in early Byzantium, unsettling fixed gender categorization. Conceiving of a trans figure of an ascetic subverting conventional binaries, the Life creates a model for incorporating non-conforming masculinities of Byzantine society within the normative hagiographic genre. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2359-8107 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Review of ecumenical studies
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2478/ress-2021-0041 |