This book compares shifting formulations of gender, interfaith, and ethnic relations across continents from antiquity to the Nineteenth century. Contributors address three areas: depictions of homosexual and transgendered behaviours, conceptualizations of femininity and masculinity, and the marriageability of ethnic and religious minorities.

Introduction; B.Britt & A.Cuffel PART ONE: ANCIENT CULTURES Ethnic Curses as Last Resort of the Weak in the Hebrew Bible; B.Britt Nymphs, Sexuality, and Young Girls in Ancient Greece; A.Knoblauch Hercules in a Skirt: The Paradox of Victory in the Early Roman Empire; C.Barton PART TWO: MEDIEVAL CULTURES Queer Mediterranean: Queer Sexualities in the Medieval Arab-Islamic World; S.Amer Eunuchs and Amazons: Exploring Gender Diversity in Byzantium; K.Ringrose "The Sweepings of Lamia": Transformations of the Myths of Lilith and Lamia in Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic; I.Resnick & K.F.Kitchell, Jr. Hunters and Boundaries; S.Belcher PART THREE: EARLY MODERN CULTURES The Vain, Exotic, and Erotic Feather: Dress, Gender, and Power in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England; C.Howey Soothing the Savage('s) B(r)east(s): Women's Clothing and Covering in the Discourse of Colonialism; A.Knobler Becoming Jews: Slavery, Conversion, and Upward Mobility in Colonial Suriname; A.Ben-Ur Revolution and the Family: Christian Marriage Law and European Expansion; J.Muldoon Conclusions; B.Britt & A.Cuffel

BRIAN BRITT is Associate Professor and Director of Religious Studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA. He is the author of Walter Benjamin and the Bible and Rewriting Moses.
ALEXANDRA CUFFEL is Assistant Professor of History at Macalester College, USA. She is the author of Filthy Words/Filthy Bodies.