Research Catalog

Title

Missing mothers : maternal absence in Antiquity / edited by Sabine R. Huebner and David M. Ratzan.

Publication

Leuven : Peeters, 2021.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Ratzan, David M.
• Huebner, Sabine R., 1976-

Description

viii, 347 pages : illustrations (partly color); 24 cm.

Summary

The last forty years of research have cast new light on the lives of ancient Mediterranean women in the penumbra of our patriarchal sources, including the pervasive risks they faced in becoming mothers. Current demographic models suggest that perhaps as many as one in five children would have lost their mothers by age ten. The inescapable conclusion is that the absence of ancient mothers is not merely an artifact of bias in our sources, but also a fundamental condition of antiquity, with profound implications for ancient family life and the experience of childhood. 'Missing Mothers: Maternal Absence in Antiquity' is the first volume dedicated to studying mother absence as an integrated phenomenon in the ancient Mediterranean, from its obvious manifestation as total absence in the wake of maternal death, to the partial absences of maternal separation brought about by economic necessity, divorce, slavery, social conventions, and occasionally choice. The fifteen essays collected here explore the gaps left by absent mothers and how individuals, families, and societies in the ancient Mediterranean conceptualized, represented, and responded to those gaps, practically, psychologically, artistically, and politically between the 5th century BCE and late antiquity.

Series Statement

Interdisciplinary studies in ancient culture and religion ; 22

Uniform Title

Interdisciplinary studies in ancient culture and religion ; 22.

Subject

• Orphans > Mediterranean Region > History > Congresses
• Mothers > Mediterranean Region > History > Congresses
• Orphans > Rome > History > Congresses
• Mothers > Rome > History > Congresses
• Mothers
• Orphans
• Mediterranean Region
• Rome (Empire)
• Internum Mare

Genre/Form

• Conference papers and proceedings.
• History.

Note

• Proceedings of a conference held in Basel, Switzerland in May 2016.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-320) and indexes.

Contents

Motherless antiquity : an introduction / Sabine R. Huebner and David M. Ratzan -- Part 1. Born motherless. Motherless infancy in the Roman and the late ancient world / Christian Laes -- Every woman counts : rethinking maternal mortality inthe bioarchaeological context -- Chryssi Bourbou. Part 2. Growing up motherless. Was the Athenian State in the classical period indifferent to mother-absence? / Rosalia Hatzilambrou -- The risk of violence towards motherless children in ancient Greece / Fiona McHardy -- The last will of Alcestis : Motherless children and their widowed fathers in Roman Egypt / Sabine R. Huebner -- A long way from home : Motherless children in slave sale contracts -- Judith Evans Grubbs -- Fact, fiction, and family : Stepmothers in the Valentinian-Theodosian dynasty / Geoffrey Nathan. Part 3. Minding the gap : representing mother absence. Absent mothers by choice : Upper class women in classical Attic vase painting / Susanne Moraw -- Motherly absence in Euripides' reunion plays / Angeliki Tzanetou -- Growing up motherless, growing up to be a hero: Motherless children in Virgil's Aeneid / Elina Pyy -- Missing motherhood : Envisioning the childless empress of the Trajanic-Hadrianic era / Margaret Woodhull. Part 4. Filling the void : mother absence and memory. Moses : Motherless with two mothers / René Bloch -- Ascetic absentees : Late ancient reading strategies in pursuit of the maternal ideal / Maria Doerfler -- Topographies of mother loss and mother absence in late antique Palestine : A view from rabbinic and liturgical sources / Sarit Kattan Gribetz.

Call Number

JFE 22-397

ISBN

• 9789042943131
• 9042943130

LCCN

9789042943131

OCLC

1273112893

Title

Missing mothers : maternal absence in Antiquity / edited by Sabine R. Huebner and David M. Ratzan.

Publisher

Leuven : Peeters, 2021.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Interdisciplinary studies in ancient culture and religion ; 22

Interdisciplinary studies in ancient culture and religion ; 22.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-320) and indexes.

Added Author

Ratzan, David M., editor.

Huebner, Sabine R., 1976- editor.

Other Form:

9789042943148 e-book version

Other Standard Identifier

9789042943131

Research Call Number

JFE 22-397