Roman Charity: Queer Lactations in Early Modern Visual Culture

Jutta Gisela Sperling

Open Access Published by transcript Verlag 2016

Roman Charity

Queer Lactations in Early Modern Visual Culture

Jutta Gisela Sperling

Volume 87 in the series Image

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839432846

Overview
Contents

About this book

»Roman Charity« investigates the iconography of the breastfeeding daughter from the perspective of queer sexuality and erotic maternity. The volume explores the popularity of a topic that appealed to early modern observers for its eroticizing shock value, its ironic take on the concept of Catholic »charity«, and its implied critique of patriarchal power structures. It analyses why early modern viewers found an incestuous, adult breastfeeding scene »good to think with« and aims at expanding and queering our notions of early modern sexuality. Jutta Gisela Sperling discusses the different visual contexts in which »Roman Charity« flourished and reconstructs contemporary horizons of expectation by reference to literary sources, medical practice, and legal culture.

Author / Editor information

Jutta Gisela Sperling (PhD) teaches early modern history at Hampshire College, MA. Her research interests include convent studies, comparative legal studies in the Mediterranean, and early modern lactation imagery.

Reviews

»Sperling's book is a useful addition to scholarly conversations in several fields and disciplines - art history and early modern gender studies in particular. Though not a text for an introductory course, it provides more advanced students and researchers with thoughtful and creative tools for analyzing the transmission of images through time as well as about the ways in which we engage the meaning and reception of those images.«
Peter Carlson, Comitatus, 48 (2017)

Supplementary Materials

Leseprobe

Topics

Frontmatter Open Access Download PDF	1
Table of Contents Open Access Download PDF	5
Acknowledgements Open Access Download PDF	7
Introduction Open Access Download PDF	9
Part I: Images
Chapter 1. Breastfeeding Pero Sign of Desire, Transgression, and Dionysian Excess (1525–50) Open Access Download PDF	37
Chapter 2. The Caravaggesque Moment Roman Charity as Figure of Dissent Open Access Download PDF	103
Chapter 3. Poussin’s and Rubens’s Long Shadows Roman Charity, French History Painting, and the Hybridization of Genres Open Access Download PDF	175
Part II: Texts and Contexts
Chapter 4. The Literary Tradition Erotic Insinuations, Irony, and Ekphrasis Open Access Download PDF	231
Chapter 5. Adult Breastfeeding as Cure Queer Lactations in Medical Discourse Open Access Download PDF	269
Chapter 6. Charity, Mother of Allegory Breastfeeding as “Other Speech” Open Access Download PDF	307
Chapter 7. Patriarchy and Its Discontents Father-Daughter Relations and the Emergence of Absolutism Open Access Download PDF	351
Appendix
List of Figures Open Access Download PDF	375
Table. Caravaggisti, Caravaggeschi, and Their Iconographical Choices1 Open Access Download PDF	387
Works Cited Open Access Download PDF	393
Index of Artists Open Access Download PDF	427

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 430
Keywords: Queer Studies; Early Modern History; Gender; Patriarchy; Art; Image; Cultural History; Visual Studies; Queer Theory; Art History; Fine Arts

eBook

Published: October 27, 2016
ISBN: 9783839432846