Carnal Knowing: Female Nakedness and Religious Meaning in the Christian WestWhen we look at Michelangelo's David, we see a nakedness that expresses physical prowess, self-knowledge, and spiritual discipline. What do we see when we look at Hans Baldung's Eve, the Serpent, and Death or Master Francke's Martyrdom of Saint Barbara? Why should those naked female images symbolize wantonness and shame? How do ideas about nakedness formed at the dawn of Christianity continue to shape today's sexual values? What must women do to take their bodies back? This revolutionary study by Margaret R. Miles, formerly Bussey Professor of Historical Theology at the Harvard Divinity School and author of the acclaimed Images as Insight, sifts through centuries of Christian writing and religious ritual and, above all, Western art to reveal the origins of our attitudes toward women's bodies and their encoded meanings. Broad enough to encompass fourth-century descriptions of Christian baptism and contemporary theories of representation, Carnal Knowing is a brilliant, startling work of scholarship whose implications extend far beyond the academy to the way we live and see. |
Contents
| 1 | |
RELIGIOUS PRACTICES OF NAKEDNESS | 21 |
Introduction to Part Two | 81 |
The Power of RepresentationProductive | 187 |
Notes | 193 |
| 231 | |
| 243 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Adam and Eve Adam's Ambrose Apostolic Constitutions artists ascetic asceticism Augustine Augustine's Baldung baptism baptized baths beauty become male breast carnal Christ Christian West church Cindy Sherman City of God clothing created creation culture Cyril of Jerusalem death depictions Enkidu erotic Eve's example experience eyes Fall fasting female body female nakedness female sexuality feminist flesh fourth century gender genitals Gilgamesh gnostic grotesque grotesque body hair Harpham Hic Mulier Hildegard historical human Ibid images interpretation Jerome literature lust Luther male body Malleus Maleficarum martyrdom medieval naked baptism naked body nude painting patriarchal patristic Perpetua physical pleasure practices public sphere religious meaning Renaissance representations of women represented reveals roles Roman secular self-representation Sermon serpent sexual intercourse Siduri sixteenth century social societies soul spiritual subjectivity Susanna symbolic temptation Tertullian theological tion tism trans University Press viewer virginity visual witches woman women's bodies York