JESUS’ SIDE WOUND GENDER AND THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE DIVINE BODY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

• Authors: Štrbo Dominik
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The topic of the body, gender and sexuality as part of the discourse of the High and Late Middle Ages has been the subject of research by Western and Western-oriented scholars for several decades, and visual culture has been an integral part of it. The vision of his body, present and past, is the subject of the present paper, which thematizes the intersections between sacred and erotic seeing/reading/contemplation, et cetera, of Christ’s corporeality as a whole or its individual parts. It is Christ’s side wound that presents a rich area for the interpretation of the associations and practices that a medieval viewer might have adopted towards the image of the saviour. The strict heteronormative subtraction of the sacred body is thus confronted with visions of medieval monasticism and priesthood, metaphors and models of identification, private and lay piety, or apotropaic functions that offer a particular view of Christ’s body as transcending gender. In contrast to medieval thought, however, we also work with the vision of today’s viewer, whose view of ancient art may be queer. By juxtaposing such perspectives, we aim to take research in new directions in the study of medievalism – towards a queer medievalism.

Keywords

EN

GENDER; MIDDLE AGES; VISUAL CULTURE; JESUS; DIVINE BODY; THEOLOGICAL

• Publisher: Institute of History of Art, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: ARS
• Year: 2025
• Volume: 58
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 48 - 68

Contributors

author

Štrbo Dominik

• Centrum vied o umení SAV, v.v.i., Dúbravská cesta 9, 841 04 Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31577/ars-2025-0004