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Contested Masculinities

Polysemy and Gender in 1 Thessalonians

Robert Stegmann

In Contested Masculinities, the author argues for the importance of critical consciousness, and attentiveness to the interplay of the biblical text, context and the long, complex, histories of interpretation that play out in the construction of masculinities. Locating his reading of 1 Thessalonians within the thickly textured setting of a postcolonial, post-apartheid South Africa, the author seeks to recontextualize Paul, providing a nuanced understanding of how Paul’s letters exercise authority over both the church and the academy. The author maintains that attempts to frame either the biblical text or notions of masculinity as singular and universal perpetuate and reinforce binary formulations (church/academy, global north/global south, colonizer/colonized, male/female) and entrench hierarchies of power. The author re-reads 1 Thessalonians, exploring the fissures that come into view when training a postcolonial and gender-critical lens on the biblical text and delivers a refreshing account that is playful and open and porous, especially as a conversational piece for masculinity, ancient and contemporary.

Lexington Books

Pages: 222 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9

978-1-7936-0286-2 • Hardback • October 2020 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

978-1-7936-0287-9 • eBook • October 2020 • $45.00 • (£35.00)

Series: Feminist Studies and Sacred Texts

Subjects: Religion / Biblical Criticism & Interpretation / New Testament, Social Science / Feminism & Feminist Theory, Social Science / Women's Studies

Contested Masculinities

Polysemy and Gender in 1 Thessalonians

Hardback

eBook

Summary

In Contested Masculinities, the author argues for the importance of critical consciousness, and attentiveness to the interplay of the biblical text, context and the long, complex, histories of interpretation that play out in the construction of masculinities. Locating his reading of 1 Thessalonians within the thickly textured setting of a postcolonial, post-apartheid South Africa, the author seeks to recontextualize Paul, providing a nuanced understanding of how Paul’s letters exercise authority over both the church and the academy. The author maintains that attempts to frame either the biblical text or notions of masculinity as singular and universal perpetuate and reinforce binary formulations (church/academy, global north/global south, colonizer/colonized, male/female) and entrench hierarchies of power. The author re-reads 1 Thessalonians, exploring the fissures that come into view when training a postcolonial and gender-critical lens on the biblical text and delivers a refreshing account that is playful and open and porous, especially as a conversational piece for masculinity, ancient and contemporary.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 222 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9

978-1-7936-0286-2 • Hardback • October 2020 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

978-1-7936-0287-9 • eBook • October 2020 • $45.00 • (£35.00)

Series: Feminist Studies and Sacred Texts

Subjects: Religion / Biblical Criticism & Interpretation / New Testament, Social Science / Feminism & Feminist Theory, Social Science / Women's Studies

Author

Robert Stegmann is educator, New Testament scholar, research fellow at Stellenbosch University and is a contributor to the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Gender Studies.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

Chapter 1: Reading Bodies, Reading Scripture in a Post-Apartheid South Africa

Chapter 2: Male Bodiliness and Performance: Developing a Gender-Critical Optic

Chapter 3: Inscribing Relationships of Power: Developing a Postcolonial Optic

Chapter 4: Reading Bodies, Ancient and Contemporary

Chapter 5: Interpretational Coordinates: Historical Markers for Reading 1 Thessalonians

Chapter 6: A Gender-Critical, Postcolonial Reading of 1 Thessalonians

Chapter 7: Masculinity, Biblical Texts and the Metaphors by which We Live

Epilogue

Bibliography

About the Author

Reviews

Rob Stegmann employs gender-critical, postcolonial-inclined and contextual-aware lenses as he deftly works toward plotting out a polysemous yet bodily expressed Pauline masculinity in 1 Thessalonians in its socio-historical setting, deliberately encountering also the academy-church interface in South Africa and beyond…besides enriching, words like academically and personally engaging, committed and also honest and inviting, probably best describe this book!

— Jeremy Punt, University of Stellenbosch

Contested Masculinities

Polysemy and Gender in 1 Thessalonians

Robert Stegmann

Contested Masculinities

Polysemy and Gender in 1 Thessalonians

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