(no subject)

[vaznetti]

Even with the time-change, I'm getting a wretchedly late start today. This is a problem because Friday was one of those days when everything takes twice as long and is three times as much trouble as it should, such that although I managed to run my errands, I did no grading. Woe! I have promised my students their midterms on Monday, and midterms they shall have.

Meanwhile, I continue to waste time on Livejournal.

Here are three rather old links (old for this fast-moving livejournal world of ours, anyway), but well-worth reading.

• Tom Holland, author of Rubicon, has a nice piece on all the sex in Rome in last week's Times. I think there's something interesting in here about the difference between modern myths of Rome and the discipline of Roman history.



• minisinoo has posted an excellent essay on Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World. Her focus is largely on Greece and the Near East (she's a Hellenist), and she makes some interesting observations about the effect of the one on the other. There is also bibliography.



• And on an entirely different note, tarshaan, who has taken up the burden of writing Krycek for the crossovers100 challenge, has posted a marvelous Discworld/XF crossover, Unexpected Quarters. I quote here my favorite line (well, one of my favorite lines), "YOU SEND A LOT OF BUSINESS MY WAY." Go, read, leave feedback.

I understand that fandom and character suggestions for yuletide expire tonight, with sign-ups beginning next week. I'm starting to have second thoughts about signing up, although I expect that I will. Last year, however, I signed up to write anything I thought I had half a chance of managing 1000 words on; I think this year I may be more selective. Not to complain about last year's experience: I had great fun and had that warm glow of pride one gets from writing in a fandom that was, is and always shall be obscure (although I was saddened to see that "Wieldy the Vampire Slayer" is not the only piece of Dalziel and Pascoe fanfiction on the net. Darn!) I think I'll just have to wait until I see the final list and can decide what I think I'm capable of writing. Certainly, there are some suggestions that are making my fingers twitch in the "hmm, I wonder if I could pull that off" way.

And now, to dress and head to the office.

Comments

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

Oooh, thank for the link to the Hollander piece - am looking forward to catching up on "all the sex" tonight as I missed that episode. Heh!

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

The Hollander piece was really interesting--thanks for the link. It struck me as a bit problematic, though, as well. Hollander is assuming that most people's actual sexual attitudes and practices aligned perfectly with the sternest moral prescriptions of their society. But how often is that really the case? Certainly, most modern Americans' sexual lives bear little relation to our own moralists' model of virginity until marriage, monogamy thereafter, and only procreative sex in marriage.

Similarly, do the insults flung at politicians like Pompey or Caesar reflect the social attitudes of the majority (as opposed to those of a stern and cranky minority, deployed as a way of achieving political ends)? To use a comparison again, one would've thought from the Bill Clinton scandal that no man in America would ever have dreamed of receiving an extramarital blow job, except the wicked president.

[vaznetti]

It struck me as a bit problematic, though, as well. Hollander is assuming that most people's actual sexual attitudes and practices aligned perfectly with the sternest moral prescriptions of their society.

I'm not sure that this is what Holland (isn't Hollander the poet?) is implying. The insults to Pompey and Caesar, for instance, don't come from "moralists" -- they're used to stir up the ordinary people of Rome,, and thus presumably reflect widely-held attitudes about male sexual activity. I think that the opposite is true, actually -- that the creators of Rome assumed that the nightmares of perversity invented by moralists and satirists represented real behavior.

I think that the secondary question -- the extent to which practice and rhetoric (popular or elitist) interact -- is an interesting one. it's difficult for ancient historians to approach, of course, because most of our evidence is rhetoric rather than practice. It is useful, of course, that there were a variety of rhetorical stances which were seen as "valid."

To use a comparison again, one would've thought from the Bill Clinton scandal that no man in America would ever have dreamed of receiving an extramarital blow job, except the wicked president.

Really? I would have assumed the opposite -- the scandal is potent because so many do.

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links! I enjoyed them all, and the second's reading list will be very helpful.

[tarshaan.livejournal.com]

Now that I'm back from Wales & catching up -- Oh, wow, lovely rec! Thank you! ::does happy dance::

(Now I just have another 99 to write, eep... *g*)

[vaznetti]

My pleasure -- I figure that our friends lists don't overlap so much, and the story was well worth pointing out!