Textiles and Gender in Antiquity: From the Orient to the Mediterranean

— —

Professor Mary Harlow (University of Leicester, UK) Cecile Michel (CNRS, Archéologie et Sciences de l’Antiquité, France)

Textiles and Gender in Antiquity

From the Orient to the Mediterranean

Professor Mary Harlow (University of Leicester, UK), Cecile Michel (CNRS, Archéologie et Sciences de l’Antiquité, France), Louise Quillien (University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, France.)

$260

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Bloomsbury Academic
12 November 2020

History of fashion; Textile design & theory; Ancient history: to c 500 CE

This volume looks at how the issues of textiles and gender intertwine across three millennia in antiquity and examines continuities and differences across time and space – with surprising resonances for the modern world. The interplay of gender, identity, textile production and use is notable on many levels, from the question of who was involved in the transformation of raw materials into fabric at one end, to the wearing of garments and the construction of identity at the other.

Textile production has often been considered to follow a linear trajectory from a domestic (female) activity to a more ‘commercial’ or ‘industrial’ (male-centred) mode of production. In reality, many modes of production co-existed and the making of textiles is not so easily grafted onto the labour of one sex or the other. Similarly, textiles once transformed into garments are often of ‘unisex’ shape but worn to express the gender of the wearer.

As shown by the detailed textual source material and the rich illustrations in this volume, dress and gender are intimately linked in the visual and written records of antiquity. The contributors show how it is common practice in both art and literature not only to use particular garments to characterize one sex or the other, but also to undermine characterizations by suggesting that they display features usually associated with the opposite gender.

Edited by: Professor Mary Harlow (University of Leicester UK), Cecile Michel (CNRS, Archéologie et Sciences de l’Antiquité, France), Louise Quillien (University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, France.)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 678g
ISBN: 9781350141490
ISBN 10: 1350141496
Pages: 328
Publication Date: 12 November 2020
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Mary Harlow is an Associate Professor in Ancient History at the University of Leicester, UK. She has published extensively on Roman dress and has been an editor and contributor to several of Bloomsbury’s Cultural History series including Children and the Family (2010), Dress and Fashion (2017), Hair (2018) and Shopping (2019). Cécile Michel is a Senior Researcher at CNRS, Archéologie et Science de l’Antiquité, France and Professor of Assyriology at Hamburg University, Germany. She has published books and studies on women, gender studies and ancient textiles including Textile Terminologies (2010 and 2017) Wool Economy in the Ancient Near East and the Aegean (2014) and The Role of Women in Work and Society in the Ancient Near East (2016). Louise Quillien is a Researcher at CNRS, Archéologie et Science de l’Antiquité, France. She defended her PhD on Textiles in Mesopotamia, 1st millennium BC: manufacturing techniques, trade and uses in 2016.

Reviews for Textiles and Gender in Antiquity: From the Orient to the Mediterranean

This essential volume provides a much-needed study of textiles, dress, and gender in the ancient world. With its wide chronological and geographical range, it provides students and scholars with useful information from the ancient Near East to late antique Rome in a series of essays that look not only at clothing and textile production, but also at how these categories were almost always cast in terms of gender in antiquity. -- Kelly Olson, Professor of Classical Studies, University of Western Ontario, Canada