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Bodymaps: Sexing Space and Zoning Gender in Ancient Athens
Author(s) -
Davidson James
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
gender and history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.153
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-0424
pISSN - 0953-5233
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0424.2011.01659.x
Subject(s) - subjectivity , sociology , human sexuality , gender studies , space (punctuation) , public space , aesthetics , architecture , elite , epistemology , law , political science , linguistics , art , visual arts , philosophy , architectural engineering , politics , engineering
In classical Athenian discourse, there are many examples that can usefully be summarised in terms of an opposition between the private, domestic, interior space of women and the public, civic, exterior space of men. Recently there have been a number of attempts to critique this discourse on several grounds. Some of these arguments are persuasive, but the net effect has been to allow the discourse itself to be neglected as a banal cliché or even as the product of a Liars School of Elite Male Authors. In this paper, I wish to re‐examine the discourse, hoping to demonstrate that, far from being banal, it is complex, resonant and consequential, and worthy of study in itself. The first part examines the gender terms andrōn/gynaikōnitis to refer to parts of houses and the evidence for men's and women's bodies as differently coloured by the spaces in which they spend time. The second part examines space and sexuality, the peculiar ‘spatial subjectivity’ linked to experiences of fear and desire. The third part suggests ways in which the discourse connects with other elements of the dispositif : images, architecture, urban topography and habitual practices.