Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens by James Davidson
Requirements: PDF reader, 21.6
Overview: Desire is a dangerous thing. The relationship between citizens of ancient Athens & their desires was a complex & troubled one. James Davidson’s Courtesans & Fishcakes is a brilliant kaleidoscopic examination of daily life in classical Athens. The life he reveals is simultaneously more alien & more familiar than we might have imagined. From fish-guzzling gourmands to the ambiguous eroticism of vase paintings, the cradle of Western culture is artfully, & frequently amusingly, anatomized. Davidson believes that many historians, under the influence of Foucault, are guilty of imposing modern views of desire, & particularly sexuality, on Greek culture, resulting in a simplistic interpretation of what was an extremely complicated issue. He refutes the prevailing opinion that sex in Athens was a simple binary opposition of penetrator & penetrated, drawing on a remarkable number of sources to show how sexuality was a slippery commodity rooted in intricate social negotiations, a characteristic shared with many other objects of desire, from eels to undiluted wine. Davidson sometimes assumes a little too much knowledge on the part of his audience–some basic information about the size of the Athenian population would’ve been helpful–but in spite of this Courtesans & Fishcakes is both accessible & provocative, offering a fascinating portrait of the private & public lives of ancient Athenians.
Genre: Non Fiction > History
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