Skip to main content

IMC 2023: Sessions

Session 1007: Premodern Sex and Sexualities in Arabic Erotic Texts

Wednesday 5 July 2023, 09.00-10.30

Organiser:Kathryn Maude, Department of English, American University of Beirut
Moderator/Chair:Kathryn Maude, Department of English, American University of Beirut
Paper 1007-aCheeks like Apples, Breasts like Pomegranates: The Anecdotal Lesbian in 10th-Century Arabic Erotic Writing
(Language: English)
Riwa Roukoz, Department of English, American University of Beirut
Index terms: Gender Studies, Islamic and Arabic Studies, Language and Literature - Other, Sexuality
Paper 1007-bSame-Sex Desire and the Long Tradition of Arabic Erotica, 10th-15th Centuries
(Language: English)
Pernilla Myrne, Institutionen för språk och litteraturer, Göteborgs Universitet
Index terms: Gender Studies, Islamic and Arabic Studies, Language and Literature - Other, Sexuality
Paper 1007-cA 14th-Century Moralist's Reading of Same-Sex Desires
(Language: English)
Jonathan Lawrence, Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford
Index terms: Gender Studies, Islamic and Arabic Studies, Language and Literature - Other, Sexuality
Abstract

How are sex and sexualities constructed in the premodern Arabic tradition? This panel focuses on Arabic erotic manuals and moral teachings to consider the construction of same-sex desire, permissable and non-permissable sex acts, and the conflict between idealised and real sexual practices. The papers address changing attitudes towards same-sex desire from the 10th to the 15th centuries, affective language around lesbianism and queer desires in the 10th-century Jawami' al-Ladhdha (the Encyclopedia of Pleasure), and the writings of Ibn Abī Ḥajalah on sex and morality in 14th-century Cairo.