Embodying the Past

Embodiment and its consequences are hardly new concepts to late ancient studies. From the first stirrings of “Late Antiquity” as a period of interest, historians from Peter Brown to Averil Cameron reckoned with Michel Foucault's claim that power was made manifest by acting on human bodies. Such an awareness shaped Brown's conception of the ascetic's authority and Elizabeth Clark's apprehension of the power Melania the Younger derived from donning a rough gown.¹ Nevertheless, apart from asceticism, the late ancient body as both sensate and stimulus remains an underexplored area of study. Nor have we done enough to identify and address how our own community is still haunted by the attitudes...