Virgin Territory by Julia Kelto Lillis, Hardcover, 9780520389014 | Buy online at The Nile
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Virgin Territory

Configuring Female Virginity in Early Christianity

Author: Julia Kelto Lillis   Series: Christianity in Late Antiquity

Virgin Territory
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Description

Women's virginity held tremendous significance in early Christianity and the Mediterranean world. Julia Kelto Lillis demonstrates that early Christian thinkers developed diverse definitions of virginity and understood its bodily aspects in surprising, often nonanatomical ways.

Eventually Christians took part in a cross-cultural shift toward viewing virginity as something that could be perceived in women's sex organs. Treating virginity as anatomical brought both benefits and costs. By charting this shift and situating it in the larger landscape of ancient thought, Virgin Territory illuminates unrecognized differences among early Christian sources and historicizes problematic ideas about women's bodies that still persist today.

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Critic Reviews

"An exciting and essential addition to the ever-growing body of scholarship on the body in antiquity." Bryn Mawr Classical Review
"Lillis offers a sophisticated study that enhances historians’ sensitivity to an intellectual history of virginity." Plekos
"This book is consummately well conceived, researched, written and produced."
  THE CLASSICAL REVIEW
"Lillis’s sophisticated treatment of this important subject will no doubt be useful to scholars exploring topics of sex, gender, the body, and late antique piety."
  Catholic Historical Review

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About the Author

Julia Kelto Lillis is Assistant Professor of Early Church History at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York.

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Product Details

Publisher
University of California Press
Published
13th December 2022
Pages
290
ISBN
9780520389014

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