Erotic Desire in the Premodern Mediterranean

Erotic desire may be a universal human phenomenon. How we explain, depict, express, or experience desire is, however, not a universal, uniform matter. The premodern Mediterranean (from roughly the fifth century BCE to the fifteenth century CE) gives us a variety of forms of sexual experience and expression. We will study the history of these forms through texts, images, and objects: from Platonic love or eros to Roman tales of romance, from Judeo-Christian mysticism to Islamic literature, from sexual diets to erotic amulets. Enrollment limited to 25.