IMC 2013: Sessions
Session 221: Pleasures and Interactions in the Medieval Islamic World, I
Monday 1 July 2013, 14.15-15.45
Sponsor: | School of Abbasid Studies, Universities of St Andrews, Cambridge, and Leuven |
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Organiser: | Hugh Kennedy, Department of the Languages & Cultures of the Near & Middle East, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London |
Moderator/Chair: | Hugh Kennedy, Department of the Languages & Cultures of the Near & Middle East, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London |
Paper 221-a | Medieval Pragmatics: Knowing the Rules and How to Break Them (Language: English) Index terms: Islamic and Arabic Studies, Women's Studies |
Paper 221-b | Differentiation of Pleasure in Medieval Arabic Erotica (Language: English) Index terms: Islamic and Arabic Studies, Sexuality |
Paper 221-c | The Abbasid Slave Courtesan: A Cultural Mediator for an Ethical Appreciation of Pleasure (Language: English) Index terms: Islamic and Arabic Studies, Sexuality |
Abstract | This session looks at representations of sexual relations in the first three centuries of the Abbasid caliphate (750-1050). Abbasid court culture produced a a variety of writing dealing with relations between the sexes in a courtly and literate society. Much of the discussion focuses on the role of the slave-girl, often highly educated outspoken but subject all sorts of limits and boundaries. The adab (belles-lettres) literature of the time discusses all the pleasures of a courtly society including food, dress and wine and sexuality was an important and explicit element in this milieu. |