Being a Man

Reviews / Votes

"This important book, both fascinating and instructive, seems to be the first of its kind in probing masculinity and masculinities in a wide range of societies of the ancient world that lay outside the orbit of Graeco-Roman culture." - David J.A. Clines, University of Sheffield, UK

"Ilona Zsolnay, the editor of the book, and all the authors who took part in it deserve our congratulations for producing this welcome addition to gender studies and to ancient Near Eastern studies in a broad sense... [W]ith its intrinsic diversity, Zsolnay's volume of the study of masculinities constitutes a welcome addition to a field that is still largely unexplored. I agree with her diagnosis of why this is so: "the negotiation and maintenance of certain constructions of masculinities, as they are today, form a, if not the, keystone of societal organization" (p. 5). In this scenario, then, there is no doubt that approaching ancient masculinities as a research topic may help us to assess (or re-assess) some of our current views on masculinities and femininities." - Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"[A] very significant contribution to understanding the complexity of the socio-cultural construction of masculinities in the ancient Near East and in the Bible. The presence of a comparative vision, with contributions on India and on the reception of the biblical tradition, is important and stimulating. The volume, therefore, demonstrates the importance of a look at the relational aspects of male gender performances, taking into account not only the opposition to the other gender(s) but also the systems of social classification concerning age, work, social roles, power, hegemony-subordination relationships, and at the body as the place of this ongoing negotiation. The volume shows the importance and potential of the study of the construction of masculinities in the ancient Near East." - Archiv fuer Orientforschung