Sex and Sexuality: 2007 Conference Session 6

Session 6: Bodies
Chair: Vince Carr

Painting the Bodiless: Angels and Eunuchs in Byzantine Art and Culture
Amelia R. Brown
Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology, U.C. Berkeley, California, USA

At first glance, no figures in Byzantine culture of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages are as dissimilar as angels and eunuchs. The first were heavenly creatures, the messengers of God who brought 'good tidings, of great joy' to humanity; the second, at least in literature, were venal, corrupt, and evil, friends of prostitutes, corrupters of virgins, and unnatural monsters. We would thus expect court eunuchs to be depicted as demons in art, if at all; however, the fact is that during the Byzantine Empire the iconography of angels and eunuchs were closely linked, as a result both of their similar occupations and the traditions brought to bear on the problem of depicting angels, traditionally bodiless. Textual evidence on the roles and appearance of each group begins to reveal these connections, but it is only when the art of the Empire itself is examined that the close relationship of angels and eunuchs becomes clear. For while angels were always celestial beings who could look however they chose, Byzantine court eunuchs had a very particular appearance, reflected in both textual and artistic sources, and based on the inevitable physical manifestations of castration. The artistic sources give clues not only about their physical appearance, but also about their dress, functions in court ceremonial, and role in Byzantine society. Indeed, when Byzantine painters depicted the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi, or most any other scene with angels, they drew, consciously or not, on the iconography of the otherwise freakish court eunuch. This borrowing was only one part of the larger influence of imperial iconography on Christian Art, yet it is fascinating for what it reveals about angels and eunuchs, their roles in society and the Church, and indeed the evolution of Early Christian Art and the Byzantine Empire itself.

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You Are Who You Eat- The Ingestion and Incorporation of Breastmilk
Catherine Davies
Media and Communications, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

You are who you eat. Milk-fed and fattened up for the kill, I could gobble you all up! Flesh of my flesh. Mater-matter assimilated into baby-blood-and-bones, duct to nipple to mouth to skin to heart to brain to every pound of sweet juicy young meat. Fiona Giles argues that breastfeeding entails a 'level of incorporation perhaps only equalled by the moment of conception'. Spit or swallow. Dregs of mamma's special blend dribble across chubby cheeks, glazed and crackling egg-white crusts form on suckling lips. Kids seething in mother's milk, marbled and marinated. Eaten alive, drunken and digested drop by drop by drop…

The most common understanding of breastmilk is that of sustenance, fresh and pure. Unrefrigerated, unhomogenised, unpasteurised, unprocessed: mother's milk comes direct from nature without a glance at technology, less adulterated than sashimi or steak tartare. And it comes from one of our own. Marina Warner argues that 'the act of eating represents an inverted birthing: biological ownership through incorporation'. Julia Kristeva relates this milk to herself, to her own body, claiming 'I expel myself, I spit myself out'. Whilst we contentedly pour icy cold 'moo juice' on our cereal each morning and savour the sprinkle of gourmet goat's cheese in our salad at lunch, the idea of the nice lady in the café adding her own special blend to our chai latte would make many of us gag. This paper deals with the spectre of cannibalism that lurks in the shadows of breastfeeding and lactation lore to argue that in the breastfeeding relationship the lines between devoured and devourer, consumer and consumed, are not ever quite distinct. Aside from the unnerving suspected sexuality of maternal breastfeeding, other nursing relationships will be examined to explore the ways in which the incorporation of one’s body’s milk by another body alters and invents relationships and kinships.



4th Global Conference Monday 19th November - Thursday 22nd November 2007 Salzburg, Austria Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers
Session 6: Bodies Chair: Vince Carr Painting the Bodiless: Angels and Eunuchs in Byzantine Art and Culture Amelia R. Brown Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology, U.C. Berkeley, California, USA At first glance, no figures in Byzantine culture of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages are as dissimilar as angels and eunuchs. The first were heavenly creatures, the messengers of God who brought 'good tidings, of great joy' to humanity; the second, at least in literature, were venal, corrupt, and evil, friends of prostitutes, corrupters of virgins, and unnatural monsters. We would thus expect court eunuchs to be depicted as demons in art, if at all; however, the fact is that during the Byzantine Empire the iconography of angels and eunuchs were closely linked, as a result both of their similar occupations and the traditions brought to bear on the problem of depicting angels, traditionally bodiless. Textual evidence on the roles and appearance of each group begins to reveal these connections, but it is only when the art of the Empire itself is examined that the close relationship of angels and eunuchs becomes clear. For while angels were always celestial beings who could look however they chose, Byzantine court eunuchs had a very particular appearance, reflected in both textual and artistic sources, and based on the inevitable physical manifestations of castration. The artistic sources give clues not only about their physical appearance, but also about their dress, functions in court ceremonial, and role in Byzantine society. Indeed, when Byzantine painters depicted the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi, or most any other scene with angels, they drew, consciously or not, on the iconography of the otherwise freakish court eunuch. This borrowing was only one part of the larger influence of imperial iconography on Christian Art, yet it is fascinating for what it reveals about angels and eunuchs, their roles in society and the Church, and indeed the evolution of Early Christian Art and the Byzantine Empire itself. Download Conference Paper - You Are Who You Eat- The Ingestion and Incorporation of Breastmilk Catherine Davies Media and Communications, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia You are who you eat. Milk-fed and fattened up for the kill, I could gobble you all up! Flesh of my flesh. Mater-matter assimilated into baby-blood-and-bones, duct to nipple to mouth to skin to heart to brain to every pound of sweet juicy young meat. Fiona Giles argues that breastfeeding entails a 'level of incorporation perhaps only equalled by the moment of conception'. Spit or swallow. Dregs of mamma's special blend dribble across chubby cheeks, glazed and crackling egg-white crusts form on suckling lips. Kids seething in mother's milk, marbled and marinated. Eaten alive, drunken and digested drop by drop by drop… The most common understanding of breastmilk is that of sustenance, fresh and pure. Unrefrigerated, unhomogenised, unpasteurised, unprocessed: mother's milk comes direct from nature without a glance at technology, less adulterated than sashimi or steak tartare. And it comes from one of our own. Marina Warner argues that 'the act of eating represents an inverted birthing: biological ownership through incorporation'. Julia Kristeva relates this milk to herself, to her own body, claiming 'I expel myself, I spit myself out'. Whilst we contentedly pour icy cold 'moo juice' on our cereal each morning and savour the sprinkle of gourmet goat's cheese in our salad at lunch, the idea of the nice lady in the café adding her own special blend to our chai latte would make many of us gag. This paper deals with the spectre of cannibalism that lurks in the shadows of breastfeeding and lactation lore to argue that in the breastfeeding relationship the lines between devoured and devourer, consumer and consumed, are not ever quite distinct. Aside from the unnerving suspected sexuality of maternal breastfeeding, other nursing relationships will be examined to explore the ways in which the incorporation of one’s body’s milk by another body alters and invents relationships and kinships.
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