A01=Jennifer Barry
Author_Jennifer Barry
Category=DSA
Category=JBSF1
Category=JBSF11
Category=NHTB
Category=QRAX
Christian sanctity
domestic abuse in religion
early Christianity
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
feminist horror theory
feminist theology
gender-based violence
Greco-Roman ideology
hagiography
Late Antiquity
martyrdom narratives
patriarchal theology
religious power dynamics
sexualized violence
trauma studies
womanist scholarship
Product details
- ISBN 9780520423510
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 09 Sep 2025
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Gender Violence in Late Antiquity confronts the violent ideological frameworks underpinning the early Christian imagination, arguing that gender-based violence is not peripheral but is fundamental to understanding early Christian history. By analyzing hagiographical and doctrinal writings, Jennifer Barry reveals how male authors used portrayals of feminized suffering to shape ideals of sanctity and power, exploiting themes of domestic abuse, martyrdom, and sexualized violence to reinforce their visions of piety. The study first traces the roots of gendered violence within the Greco-Roman and early Christian imagination, and then explores the disturbing role of male fantasies and dreams in hagiographical traditions. Barry draws on womanist scholarship and engages with trauma studies and feminist horror theory in order to challenge traditional readings of Christian texts, offering new perspectives for understanding how narratives of violence continue to shape contemporary interpretations of gender and power.
Jennifer Barry is Associate Professor of Religious at the University of Mary Washington. She is author of Bishops in Flight: Exile and Displacement in Late Antiquity and an expert on late ancient studies, early Christianity, later Roman antiquity, and gender studies.
