Nature Embodied : Gesture in Ancient Rome / Anthony Corbeill.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Corbeill, Anthony, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gesture in literature.

Latin literature--History and criticism.

Latin literature.

Gesture--Rome.

Gesture.

Rome--Social life and customs.

Rome.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 202 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Bodily gesture. A Roman worshipper spins in a circle in front of a temple. Faced with death, a Roman woman tears her hair and beats her breasts. Enthusiastic spectators at a gladiatorial event gesticulate with thumbs. Examining the tantalizing glimpses of ancient bodies offered by surviving Roman sculptures, paintings, and literary texts, Anthony Corbeill analyzes the role of gesture in medical and religious ritual, in the gladiatorial arena, in mourning practice, in aristocratic competition of the late Republic, and in the court of the emperor Tiberius. Adopting approaches from anthropology, gender studies, and ecological theory, Nature Embodied offers both a series of case studies and an overarching narrative of the role and meanings of gesture in ancient Rome. Arguing that bodily movement grew out of the relationship between Romans and their natural, social, and spiritual environment, the book explores the ways in which an originally harmonious relationship between nature and the body was manipulated as Rome became socially and politically complex. By the time that Tacitus was writing about the reign of Tiberius, the emergence of a new political order had prompted an increasingly inscrutable equation between truth and the body--and something vital in the once harmonizing relationship between bodies and the world beyond them had been lost. Nature Embodied makes an important contribution to an expanding field of research by offering a new theoretical model for the study of gesture in classical times.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

ABBREVIATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Introduction. GESTURE AS A CULTURAL SYSTEM

Chapter 1. PARTICIPATORY GESTURES IN ROMAN RELIGIOUS RITUAL AND MEDICINE

Chapter 2. THE POWER OF THUMBS

Chapter 3. BLOOD, MILK, AND TEARS: THE GESTURES OF MOURNING WOMEN

Chapter 4. POLITICAL MOVEMENT: WALKING AND IDEOLOGY I N REPUBLICAN ROME

Chapter 5. FACE FACTS: FACIAL EXPRESSION A N D THE NEW POLITICAL ORDER IN TACITUS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX LOCORUM

GENERAL INDEX

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [169]-186) and indexes.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

9780691187808

0691187800

OCLC:

1132222142