Gender Violence in Late Antiquity

"Jennifer Barry masterfully exposes how early Christian hagiography constructed and perpetuated gendered violence through depictions of dreams and fantasies. Blending feminist, slavery, and horror theories, she reveals the androcentric imagination's reliance on women's violated bodies while unsettling contemporary discourses on power and subjectivity. This incisive analysis redefines how we read late antique violence--and its haunting modern echoes."--Chris L. de Wet, author of Preaching Bondage: John Chrysostom and the Discourse of Slavery in Early Christianity

"Exceptional and thought-provoking, Barry's book offers an important survey of the gender violence that pervades the early Christian archive and argues persuasively for the necessity of feminist historiography. Her sustained and learned engagement with the sources makes this required reading."--Ellen Muehlberger, author of Things Unseen: Essays on Evidence, Knowledge, and the Late Ancient World

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.