Ancient Sexualities

This Library course guide will help students identify research and primary sources (e.g., artistic representations, poetry, drama) related to the sexual identities of men and women in Ancient Greek and Roman societies, and attitudes towards perceived anomalies including the figures of the hermaphrodite and eunuch.

Course Number: HI305

Subject: History

Background information

Grove Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture
Oxford Bibliographies: Classics - Sexuality
- This bibliography contains references to items that the Laurier Library may not own. You can request these items from other libraries.

Books

Blanshard, Alastair. Sex Vice and Love from Antiquity to Modernity. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. (ebook)
Boatwright, Mary T. Imperial Women of Rome: Power, Gender, Context. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. (ebook)
Cohen, Edward E. Athenian Prostitution: The Business of Sex. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. (ebook)
Corbeill, Anthony. Sexing the World : Grammatical Gender and Biological Sex in Ancient Rome. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015. (print book)
Dover, Kenneth James. Greek Homosexuality : K.J. Dover. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1989. (ebook)
Faraone, Christopher A. Ancient Greek Love Magic. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999. (ebook)
Foxhall, Lin. Studying Gender in Classical Antiquity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. (ebook)
Gilhuly, Kate. The Feminine Matrix of Sex and Gender in Classical Athens. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. (ebook)
Golden, Mark, and Peter Toohey. Sex and Difference in Ancient Greece and Rome. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. (ebook).
Hubbard, Thomas K. A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities. Vol. 100. Hoboken: Wiley, 2013. (ebook)
Johnson, Marguerite. Sexuality in Greek and Roman Society and Literature: a Sourcebook. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2022. (ebook)
Masterson, Mark, Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz, and James Robson. Sex in Antiquity: Exploring Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World. London: Routledge, 2015. (ebook)
McClure, Laura. Courtesans at Table: Gender and Greek Literary Culture in Athenaeus. London: Routledge, 2003. (ebook)
McGinn, Thomas. The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World: a Study of Social History & the Brothel. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010. (ebook)
McGinn, Thomas A. J. Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. (ebook)
Moore, Kenneth Royce. Sex and the Second-Best City: Sex and Society in the Laws of Plato. London: Taylor & Francis, 2016. (ebook)
Nussbaum, Martha C., and Juha Sihvola. The Sleep of Reason: Erotic Experience and Sexual Ethics in Ancient Greece and Rome. The University of Chicago Press, 2013. (ebook)
Ormand, Kirk. Controlling Desires: Sexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2009. (ebook)
Trafford, L. J. Sex and Sexuality in Ancient Rome. Havertown: Pen and Sword, 2021. (ebook)
Tougher, Shaun. The Roman Castrati : Eunuchs in the Roman Empire. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021. (ebook)

Articles

If you come across journal article citations in bibliographies or a list of cited works, see how you can search Omni to see if we have the full text.

Images

Google Arts and Culture
- Includes content from over 2000 museums and archives around the world
JSTOR
- After completing a search, on the left side of the results, choose "Images"

Videos

Civilization—The Ascent of Woman: A 10,000 Year Story. DCD Rights Limited, 2015. (streaming video)
Who Were the Greeks?. Episode 1. London: BBC Worldwide Ltd,, 2016. (streaming video)