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Download:http://gigle.ws/women%20of%20babylon_.1208261.htmlhttp://www.ebook3000.com/Women-of-Babylon--Gender-and-Representation-in-Mesopotamia_68591.htmlhttp://www.ebookee.com/Women-Of-Babylon-Gender-And-Representation-In-Mesopotamia_454278.htmlPreview:http://books.google.com/books?id=haK4OXCs4kYC&source=gbs_navlinks_sZainab Bahrani studied the History of Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University where she earned her MA and PhD degrees in a joint program of Ancient Near Eastern and Greek art and archaeology. Prior to her appointment as the Edith Porada Professor of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, Bahrani taught at the University of Vienna in Austria, The State University of New York, at Stony Brook, New York and was a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Near Eastern Antiquities Department from 1989-1992. Professor Bahrani is the author and editor of nine books, including Women of Babylon (London: Routledge, 2001) and The Graven Image: Representation in Babylonia and Assyria (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003). Her most recent book, Rituals of War: the body and violence in Mesopotamia (New York: Zone Books, 2008) was awarded the James Henry Breasted Book Prize by the American Historical Association. Bahrani’s books are investigations into the ontological relationship of the image, the monument, and the world in antiquity. She has been particularly fascinated by the Mesopotamian conception of the image as a form of infinite presence, an argument she expounded in The Graven Image. She writes on the status and meaning of images and of art in general, addressing both ancient and modern philosophies of representation. Her other areas of interest include intellectual history, antiquarianism and the politics of art and archaeology. ....http://www.columbia.edu/cu/arthistory/html/dept_faculty_bahrani.html
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Women of Babylon:
Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia
By
Zainab Bahrani
Representations of sexual difference (whether visual or textual) have become an area of much theoretical concern and investigation in recent feminist scholarship. Yet although a wide range of relevant evidence survives from the ancient Near East, it has been exceptional for those
studying women in the ancient world to stray outside the traditional bounds of Greece and Rome.
Women of Babylon is a much-needed historical/art historical study that investigates the concepts of femininity which prevailed in Assyro-Babylonian society. Zainab Bahrani's detailed analysis of how the culture of ancient Mesopotamia defined sexuality and gender roles both in, and through, representation is enhanced by a rich selection of visual material extending from 6500 BC - 1891 AD. Professor Bahrani also investigates the ways in which women of the ancient Near East have been perceived in classical scholarship up to the nineteenth century.
* * *
Women of Babylon is a sophisticated, stimulating, and provocative study which challenges previous works on Mesopotamian views and attitudes toward women and their artistic representations. A brief review cannot do justice to the depth of Bahrani's analyses and the richness of her insights.
In her introduction, she outlines the topics she will cover in her eight chapters, noting that although recent feminist scholarship has focused on sexual differences in visual and textual representations, material from the ancient Near East has largely been neglected. Nor have specialists in the area, with a few exceptions, treated the subject of sex and gender. (The 47th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, held in Helsinki in 2001, perhaps marks a significant change in attitude.)
Bahrani believes that contemporary "theories of gender, semiotics, reconstruction, psychoanalytic and historical criticism ..." (p. 4), and the works of such thinkers as Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, and Jacques Lacan, among others, can provide insights to help better understand Mesopotamian art history. At the same time, she is cognizant of the limitations of their applicability. ...
-- Rivkah Harris,
Author of “Gender and aging in Mesopotamia : the Gilgamesh Epic and Other Ancient Literature”
