Bodies in Transition Dissolving the Boundaries of Embodied Knowledge

DIETRICH BOSCHUNG, ALAN SHAPIRO AND FRANK WASCHECK (EDS.) BODIES IN TRANSITION Dissolving the Boundaries of Embodied Knowledge MORPHOMATA This volume engages from the perspective of the ancient Mediterranean world with current debates in the field of cultural studies revolving around the idea of embodied knowledge. In particular, it deals with the dissolution of the concept of the ideal body as a repos- itory of knowledge through instances of deformation or hybridization. The starting point comprises a series of case studies of less than perfect bodies: bodies that are misshapen, stigmatized, fragmented, as well as hybrid human/ animal creatures, transgendered persons, and bodies on the cultural periphery of the classical world. All of these examples represent deviations from the ‘normal’ order of things and evoke familiar feelings of alienation. The ordered knowledge that has shaped the body is subverted and falls into disorder. One strategy for dealing with this is to canonize transgression in visual form. Fluid bodies are captured in the image and domesticated, creating a visual order in disorder. The body-as-ruin is a fixed figure of fluidity and thus especially receptive to attributions of meaning, which helps explain its persistence as a cultural trope. It allows for the observation of cultural change. BOSCHUNG, SHAPIRO, WASCHECK (EDS.)— BODIES IN TRANSITION MORPHOMATA EDITED BY GÜNTER BLAMBERGER AND DIETRICH BOSCHUNG VOLUME 23 EDITED BY DIETRICH BOSCHUNG, ALAN SHAPIRO AND FRANK WASCHECK BODIES IN TRANSITION Dissolving the Boundaries of Embodied Knowledge WILHELM FINK unter dem Förderkennzeichen 01UK0905. Die Verantwortung für den Inhalt der Veröffentlichung liegt bei den Autoren. Bibliografische Informationen der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek: Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen National biblio grafie; detaillierte Daten sind im Internet über www.dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. Alle Rechte, auch die des auszugsweisen Nachdrucks, der fotomechanischen Wiedergabe und der Übersetzung vorbehalten. Dies betrifft auch die Verviel fältigung und Übertragung einzelner Textabschnitte, Zeichnungen oder Bilder durch alle Verfahren wie Speicherung und Übertragung auf Papier, Transpa rente, Filme, Bänder, Platten und andere Medien, soweit es nicht § 53 und 54 UrhG ausdrücklich gestatten. © 2015 Wilhelm Fink, Paderborn Wilhelm Fink GmbH & Co. VerlagsKG, Jühenplatz 1, D33098 Paderborn Internet: www.fink.de Lektorat: Torsten Zimmer, Alan Shapiro, Thierry Greub Gestaltung und Satz: Kathrin Roussel, Sichtvermerk Printed in Germany Herstellung: Ferdinand Schöningh GmbH & Co. KG, Paderborn ISBN 978-3-7705-5808-7 CONTENT Preface 7 Introduction by Alan Shapiro 9 FRANÇOIS LISSARRAGUE Corps à corps: épisèmes anthropomorphiques dans la céramique attique 11 ERIC R. VARNER Fluidity and Fluctuation: the Shifting Dynamics of Condemnation in Roman Imperial Portraits 33 DESPOINA TSIAFAKIS Thracian Tattoos 89 HANS BERNSDORFF Schmerz und Bestrafung in der hellenistischen ‚Tätowierelegie‘ 119 JAN N. BREMMER Stigmata: From Tattoos to Saints’ Marks 137 VÉRONIQUE DASEN Body Marks—Birthmarks. Body Divination in Ancient Literature and Iconography 153 MARCELLO BARBANERA The Lame God: Ambiguities of Hephaistos in the Greek Mythical Realm 177 LLOYD LLEWELLYN-JONES “That My Body is Strong”: The Physique and Appearance of Achaemenid Monarchy 211 HELEN KING Between Male and Female in Ancient Medicine 249 JAN N. BREMMER A Transsexual in Archaic Greece: The Case of Kaineus 265 ALAN SHAPIRO Alkibiades’ Effeminacy and the Androgyny of Dionysos 287 ANNETTA ALEXANDRIDIS Ζῷα: Bilder des Körpers zwischen Mensch und Tier im Mythos von Aktaion 313 Contributors 350 Plates 355 PREFACE 1 This volume presents the contributions to the conference “Bodies in Transition. Dissolving the boundaries of embodied knowledge”, which was organized by the Center of Advanced Studies Morphomata on May 26th and 27th, 2011, in Cologne. In Cultural Studies ‘body’ and ‘knowledge’ intersect. Social practices implicate orders of knowledge and at the same time they shape human bodies, which in turn endow abstract concepts with a concrete form. Seemingly stable bodies are by their very nature frequently unstable forms and exposed to many dangers, as there are deformations, disfigurements, stigmatization, fragmentation or the hybridity to composite beings and transgender persons. The transgression of established boundaries can lead to confusion or terror. The embodied knowledge is thereby short circuited, turning order into chaos. One way of bringing transgressive bodies under control is through the visual fixation of the transition. The image brings order into the chaos. “Bodies in transition” are being immo bilized into an image, objectified and, in a later phase, even aestheticized. Boundarycrossing images are particularly susceptible to new interpreta tions, one reason for their persistence across cultures. The conference was a manifestation of our research interest. We explore in interdisciplinary dialogues how forms of knowledge can be embodied in a concrete form that one can perceive with the senses. In addition, Morphomata investigates what happens after such concrete forms have been created: what powers accrue to them and how they in turn impact the ideas that they represent. The development of the confer ence, as a result of fellows and staff of Morphomata working together, is representative of the work of the Center of Advanced Studies. The idea to organize the conference was presented by Assistant Director Frank Wascheck. Besides his many administrative responsibilities he always 1 Translation: Annika Gerigk and Alan Shapiro. 8 found the time and energy to contribute with his brilliant archeological knowledge to the academic work at the Center. He suggested a conference about the correlations of systems of knowledge and body images, based on his research “On the meaning of male nudity in ancient Greece”. Even though his other demanding responsibilities outside the center precluded a paper of his own, the idea of the conference and the composition of contributions show the originality and the talents of the archeologist Frank Wascheck. The discussions with Alan Shapiro, who at the time was a fellow of Morphomata, were especially important and shaped the elaboration and the profile of the academic program. Jörn Lang (Leipzig), a former research assistant of the Center, helped with the concept and the organization of the conference. Thierry Greub and Torsten Zimmer enabled the publication. I would like to express my gratitude to the above mentioned colleagues for this important contribution to the academic research of Morphomata. Dietrich Boschung ALAN SHAPIRO INTRODUCTION The idea for a conference on the body in the GrecoRoman world came initially from Frank Wascheck, whose wide reading in this field in preparation for the dissertation made the topic especially attractive. As we first tried to define a specific angle on the classical body, there were several parameters uppermost in our minds. On the one hand, we wanted to put the material culture of the ancient world at the center of the project, yet keep it broad enough to be accessible to the wideranging, interdisciplinary interests of the College’s staff and Fellows. On the other hand, we were conscious of Morphomata’s mission, to study certain key concepts in the history of ideas and culture in diachronic perspective. One of those is the concept of knowledge, in all its breadth, and the untranslatable concept of ‘Wissensordnungen.’ From these discussions emerged the project of exploring a particular aspect of the body: to use a now popular terminology, not from the center, the normative, Greek male body, but from the periphery, bodies at the boundaries of the categories that the ancients used to define the human body: physiognomy, gender, ethnicity, and so on. Some may claim that scholarship on the body in Classical Studies has reached a saturation point and is past its prime, but we do not think so. Looking back over the last few decades, it seems clear that the 1990’s were the period when interest in the body reached an initial peak of ex citement, at least in Anglophone Classical scholarship. Much—though not all—of this work was inspired by the writings of Michel Foucault in the 1970’s and 80’s. The decade of the 90’s started off with such seminal books as the historian Thomas Laqueur’s “Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud,” and, specifically on Greece, the collection of essays edited by David Halperin, Jack Winkler, and Froma Zeitlin, “Before Sexuality: the Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World” (both 1990). The end of the decade saw a kind of summation of work up to that point in the volume edited by James 10 Porter, “Constructions of the Classical Body” (1999). In between came two volumes in Great Britain by Maria Wyke, “Gender and the Body in Mediterranean Antiquity” (1997) and “Parchments of Gender: Reading the Bodies of Antiquity” (1998); also Robert Garland’s “The Eye of the Beholder. Deformity and Disability in the Greco-Roman World” (1995; just published in a second edition); and, specifically in the visual arts, Andrew Stewart’s influential “Art, Desire and the Body in Ancient Greece” (1997)—to name only a few of the best known. We are now more than a decade away from the 90’s, perhaps enough distance to revisit some of the questions posed at that time and explore some new ones. Many of our speakers published work in the 90’s

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