IMC 2022: Sessions

Session 1724: Unsettled Boundaries: Jews, Christians, and the Messiness of Purity, II

Thursday 7 July 2022, 14.15-15.45

Organiser:	Neta B. Bodner, Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish Studies, University of Oxford
Moderator/Chair:	Neta B. Bodner, Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish Studies, University of Oxford
Respondent:	Sara McDougall, Department of History, John Jay College, City University of New York
Paper 1724-a	Sexual Purity versus Ritual Purity in Medieval Egypt: The View from the Cairo Genizah (Language: English) Eve Krakowski, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University Index terms: Gender Studies, Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Sexuality
Paper 1724-b	Purification without Impurity: Postpartum Christian Rituals in Late Medieval Iberia (Language: English) Naama Cohen-Hanegbi, Department of History, Tel Aviv University Index terms: Gender Studies, Medicine
Paper 1724-c	Sensing Impurity: Scents and Sexual Misbehaviour in Christian and Jewish Literature (Language: English) Alice Raw, Corpus Christi College University of Oxford Index terms: Language and Literature - Comparative, Sexuality
Abstract	The biblical categories of purity and defilement are commonly perceived in terms of a simple and stark opposition. Yet for both Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages the border between them appears at times to be both ambiguous and diffused. Concepts such as 'pure blood' and debates concerning perpetual impurity are a window to shifting practices, changing ideologies, and cross-religious discourse. The two sessions examine how medieval authors and practices moved, bent, expanded, and fuzzed borders between 'Pure' and 'Impure' in the Middle Ages. Discussing a range of Jewish and Christian sources (medical, theological, legal, liturgical) our aim is to consider how the collapsed and undefined boundaries challenge dichotomies between various categories in the Middle Ages: pure and impure, Jewish and Christian, physical and spiritual, material and symbolic.