Kathryn Ringrose is a lecturer in history at the University of California, San Diego.
"The Perfect Servant offers much to its readers. As the extensive
bibliography and the analyses of the texts indicate, Ringrose has
read widely and thought carefully about her subject. The major
ideas she presents are usually clear, well substantiated . . . and
worthy of serious consideration."--William N. Bonds "Journal of the
History of Sexuality"
"Any book that can generate the number of underlinings and
notations that my own copy now displays has already achieved a
large part of its purpose. Ringrose is to be sincerely
congratulated on that account, and any interest in or research into
the Byzantine eunuch will do well to start with this impressive
work."--Dean A, Miller "Speculum"
"Rather than focusing on the social relations of power in
Byzantium, Ringrose locates her discussion in the realm of gender
and especially in the Christian discourse on asceticism and
sexuality. . . . In her conclusion, Ringrose appeals to the
scriptural model of the eunuch as the perfect servant, but her book
successfully exposes the much more complex and often contradictory
range of ideas that eunuchs present in relation to gender issues
within the late antique and Byzantine Christianity."--Averil
Cameron "Journal of Religion"
"Ringrose scours the literary sources to offer a history of the
Byzantine eunuch that will surely remain the standard work on the
subject for some time to come, and one that explores in detail how
this fascinating phenomenon ramified within Byzantine
culture."--Colin Wells "Bryn Mawr Classical Review"
"Ringrose's book is a thoughtful, stimulating and
non-sensationalist addition to the field. Ringrose examines eunuchs
within a Byzantine context, the first full-length study to do so.
She has two objectives: the first is to examine whether eunuchs
were regarded as a distinct gender within Byzantine society; . . .
the second is to explore how the roles played by eunuchs in society
changed between the 7th and 12th centuries. . . . It is a book that
anyone interested in gender roles and in Byzantine society needs to
pay attention to."--Liz James "Times Higher Education Supplement"
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