Gender Relations in Hellenistic Jewish Writings (Geschlechterverhältnisse)

Basic data for this project

Description

Feminist and gender relevant analysis of the Hebrew Bible are part of the beginnings of gender studies, while the Jewish writings of Greco-Roman times played a marginal role. Since one decade there is more interest in those writings, as they were discovered as documents of an early period of intense cultural interchange and hybrid fusions. Feminist studies discover the increase of female figures in Jewish hellenistic writings, but also specific new forms of misogynism. For gender studies this literature is extremely relevant as during hellenistic times a genuine gender discourse comes into being for the first time in antiquity. The research project traces gender relations and gender formations in examples of the Jewish hellenistic writings and tries to develop further the connected hermenetical questions. One research line focusses on the Books of Esther, others include the Book of Baruch, the Epistle of Jeremia, the ethiopic Book of Enoch and the Second Book of Maccabees.