About the lecture
Looking into dress and adornment in the Hebrew Bible usually brings us to focus on human bodies. However, in this lecture, we shift our attention to bejeweled non-human animal bodies, and the ways in which they contribute to the un/doing of gender norms in the biblical texts. To do so, we explore a vast array of animals wearing prestige objects, including, but not limited to, the ornate camels of the Midianite kings (Judg 8:21.26), the crowned horse in the book of Esther (8:6), the female beloved/mare and her precious necklaces in the Song (1:9), as well as the proverbial pig wearing a nose ring (Prov 11:22). With the help of gender, animal, and material studies, we explore how animal jewelry impacts genders in different ways, at times as a metaphorical lever shaping femininities, at others as a disruptor of royal masculinities.
About Dr. Darsigny-Trépanier
Laurence Darsigny-Trépanier is a PhD candidate at Institut d’études religieuses (Université de Montréal).
Her areas of interests are feminist and queer theories, and how they can be used to offer new readings of the Hebrew Bible. She is currently working on a thesis on the Song of Songs and is also a lecturer in the program of feminist, gender, and sexuality studies.
About Dr. Létourneau
Anne Létourneau is associate professor at Institut d’études religieuses (Université de Montréal). She specializes in Hebrew Bible and feminist, and gender studies. Her forthcoming book is entitled Manger et mourir? Femmes étrangères dans la Bible hébraïque, to be published with Peeters Publishers. Her most recent research focuses on gender, violence, and dress, as well as biblical animals.
Digital event - how to participate
The seminar will be held digitally. If you wish to attend a lecture, you need to register in advance.
A zoom link will be sent to you before the event.
You can download Zoom or use your browser: https://zoom.us/download
This lecture is part of the lecture series Ancient Adornment
Suggestions for further Reading
- Landy, Francis and Maria Metzler. 2019. “Deconstructing Horses, in Love and War,” in The Song of Songs Afresh: Perspectives on a Biblical Love Poem, ed. Stefan Fischer & Gavin Fernandes (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press), 151-166.
- Limmer, Abigail Susan. 2007. “The Social Functions and Ritual Significance of Jewelry in the Iron Age II Southern Levant” (PhD diss., The University of Arizona).
- O’Connor, Kathleen M. 2003. “Humour, Turnabouts and Survival in the Book of Esther,” in Are We Amused? Humour About Women in the Biblical Worlds, ed. Athalya Brenner-Idan (London ; New York : T & T Clark International), 52-64.
- Quick, Laura. 2021. Dress, Adornment, and the Body in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
- Salvesen, Alison. 1999. “כֶּתֶר (Esther 1:11; 2:17; 6:8). ‘Something to Do with a Camel’?”, Journal of Semitic Studies 44,1 (1999): 35-46.
- Stone, Ken. 2017. Reading the Hebrew Bible with Animal Studies (Stanford: Stanford University Press).
About the lecture series
A Digital Lecture Series on strategies of body adornment in ancient Mediterranean cultures
With this lecture series, we wish to reflect on different kinds of body adornment such as jewellery, headdresses, seals, staffs, weapons, tattoos, and cosmetics. It is our aim to investigate aesthetics and strategies of adorning bodies in ancient Mediterranean cultures, and to explore how body adornment relates to gender, hierarchy, and power.
Seven excellent international researchers, experts on the material cultures and texts of the ancient Mediterranean, will present a 30-minute lecture, followed by amble time for questions and discussion.
We are interested in mapping body adornment as broadly as possible and therefore we encourage our speakers to consider this topic from a multi-sensorial perspective and to give thought to both touch, smell, taste, hearing and vision.
Organizers
The lecture series is organized by Professor Anne Katrine de Hemmer Gudme and hosted by The Faculty of Theology at the University of Oslo and the Faculty’s research group Biblical Texts, Cultures and Receptions.
Ancient Adornment Programme - Fall 2024
- Friday September 13 at 3pm (Oslo): Dr. Uroš Matić: “Dress, Adornment and Coloniality of Gender and Desire in New Kingdom Egypt and Nubia”
- Friday September 27 at 3pm (Oslo): Dr. Sarah Hollaender: “Notorious Cross-Dressers? (Re)styling Hercules and Omphale in Roman Antiquity”
- Friday October 11 at 3pm (Oslo): Dr. Bruno Biermann: “Levantine Seals between the Material, Sensory, and the Social: Archaeological, Iconographic, and Exegetical Perspectives on Beauty, Power, and Dress”
- Friday November 1 at 3pm (Oslo): Dr. Susannah Rees: “Eye-paints in the Hebrew Bible: Looking for Meaning”
- Friday November 15 at 3pm (Oslo): Dr. Melanie Wasmuth: “Blossoms for eternity – floral jewellery in ancient Egypt”
- Friday December 6 at 3pm (Oslo): Dr. Laurence Darsigny-Trépanier and Dr. Anne Létourneau: “Bejeweled Biblical Animals: Constructing Gender with Non-Human Bling”