Giulia Pedrucci

This article investigates an uncommon type of ex-voto that represents a breastfeeding woman with a man or two women breastfeeding. This type of statuette has been found only in ancient Latium and Southern Italy and has never been studied in its entirety. Taking into consideration a number of variables (mothering; biological link; social status; cultural aspects; place of provenance [urban and non-urban spaces]; public or private spheres; kind of deities and, if applicable, rituals performed to honor them; other kinds of votives), the article will attempt to reconstruct the performance of religious practices that involved the offering of these votives. It is argued that offspring were at the core of family life in an extended way and that these votive items were used by family members –– not only the mother –– to communicate with religious entities about issues concerning infants and their wellness. In this regard, breastfeeding is crucial.

Through an approach that combines the academic study of religions with motherhood studies, this article examines rarely considered maternal aspects of Demeter, a goddess of the pantheon of ancient Greek religion. We first discuss which theoretical inputs and categories of maternal theory are relevant to uncover innovative lines of research on religious representations and practices in polytheistic systems of the past, thus also contributing to broader epistemological reflections in the history and study of religions. Then, considering the Homeric Hymn as well as key ritual elements of the Thesmophoria festival through the lenses of maternal theory, we examine the mother-daughter relationship and place emphasis on the role of the mother as maternal trainer. This concrete case study from the ancient Greek world demonstrates the relevance for historians of religions of considering past polytheistic systems while harnessing the fruitful interdisciplinary potential of maternal theory.

Milk is an ancient and universal food, sustaining us from birth. However, only a small percentage of the world’s population drinks milk: Animal milk is probably the most controversial of foods. Milk’s qualities and associated dangers have been debated since the dawn of civilization, which has resulted in milk being demonized as “white poison” or exalted as “white elixir”.
As concern Greece, from the sources, we gain the impression that there was a heated debate on milk as an ailment, probably because of its hemogenesis from the menstrual blood. Indeed, some sources seem to suggest that the milk as an aliment was indicated only for children, women, old and/or sick people and barbarians: These are all categories of otherness, not fully civilized people. A healthy young citizen was not supposed to drink milk (even if he probably did sometimes in his everyday life), but it could be used in magic or medical potions. Moreover, it was used to prepare libations for dead people.

International Workshop to be held at the Max-Weber-Kolleg (University of Erfurt), 31 January-1 February 2019

Pregnancies, Childbirths, and Religions: Rituals, Normative Perspectives, and Individual Appropriations. A Cross-Cultural and Interdisciplinary Perspective from Antiquity to the Present



This workshop is the second in a cycle entitled Religionification of Motherhood and Mothers’ Appropriation of Religion. The first one, Breastfeeding(s) and Religions: Normative Prescriptions and Individual Appropriation. A Cross-Cultural and Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Antiquity to the Present, will be held at the Max-Weber-Kolleg (University of Erfurt) on July 11-12, 2018.

The main goal of these workshops is to revisit the study of religions through the lenses of maternal theory without dismissing but rather through building upon the rich existing scholarship on gender and religion. In this regard, the distinction made by S.S. Sered (Priestess, Mother, Sacred Sister. Religions Dominated by Women, New York-Oxford 1994) between “womAn as symbol” (e.g., images of goddesses, normative stereotypes created by male religious authorities) and “womEn as agents” (real practice, historical mothers), and the distinction made by A. Rich (Of Woman born, New York 1976) between “Motherhood as institution” and “Motherhood as experience” (women’s experience and relation to her own reproductive capacities) are particularly relevant here. In fact, evidence suggests a widespread gap between normative representation and actual practice.

Now, it is time for pregnancy and child-birth. Nowadays, not all babies are necessarily breastfed, not all babies were necessarily breastfed by their biological mother in the past; but every single human being – as A. Rich used to say – is for sure of woman born. Always. Also, those men who have created negative stereotypes or biased norms for mothers are of woman born. Pregnancy and childbirth seem to be quite univocal terms, but they are not. The title for the workshop, in fact, is intentionally in the plural. Indeed, pregnancies can be “natural” or can be the result of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTS). There are “egg-mothers,” “surrogate mothers”, and “birth mothers”. Childbirth can be natural, cesarean, with or without epidural anesthesia, multiple, a hospital or a home birth. Religious discourses on these issues are frequent and can strongly dictate how women experience their mothering from the very beginning. The religious control on women and their reproductive capacities starts even before by dictating conception, contraception, and abortion. Religious authorities also strongly influence practices of “social birth”, that is adoption.

How do/did religions deal with pregnancy and childbirth? The aim of the workshop is to analyze how religious discourses have described and influenced such natural and strictly female practices. Within a religious discourse, pregnancy can be a divine gift, childbirth can be virginal. As far as childbirth is concerned, impurity is a central issue: How do/did religions cope with the (perceived) impurity caused by the birth event?

Moreover, pregnancy and childbirth are extremely delicate moments, both for the mothers and the babies, which need to be protected (sometimes even hidden) by all means, including religious and magical ones. They are moments of passage, which need rituals to be performed by many religious agents involved to various degrees in the mother and child’s lives, not only by the mothers herself. Which kinds of rituals are/were performed in relation to pregnancy and childbirth and which deities do/did religious agents appropriate, and eventually alter and re-invent for this purpose?

How can we explain the different attitudes towards pregnancy and childbirth in the religious discourses? To what extent dictate (male) religious authorities and sacred texts maternal practices in a normative way? Do they tell women how to get pregnant, what to do during the pregnancy and how to give birth? Do they blame women who cannot or do not want to have children? To what extent do women feel free to transgress without blaming themselves for not being a “good” women and obedient members of a specific religious tradition? In which way can/could women’s decision not to have children or disregard religious rules be perceived as religious individualization and autonomy from social inter-connectedness? Can we trace any significant differences with the so-called “religions dominated by women?” (Sered 1994).

Dr. Giulia Pedrucci, COFUND-Fellow at Max-Weber-Kolleg and the Research Centre “Dynamics of Jewish Ritual Practices in Pluralistic Contexts from Antiquity to the Present” issue this Call-for-Papers about case studies on the theoretical framework outlined above, especially but not exclusively for those in which women’s response to religious norms can be traced. Pseudo-religious movements (such as Scientology) can be also taken into account. For antiquity, papers with epistemological reflections on how we can make “(maternal) silence speak” in addition to case studies, if feasible, will be particularly welcome.

The proposals (in English), which should not exceed 300 words, must be received by May 10, 2018. Please, send them to either Dr. Giulia Pedrucci (giulia.pedrucci@gmail.com or giulia.pedrucci@uni-erfurt.de) or Dr. Claudia D. Bergmann (claudia.bergmann@uni-erfurt.de).

In a generic way, a ritual is a formalized and symbolic act or behavior. It can be both secular and religious. Many secular performances can include some religious dimension, and almost all religious activities involve some secular performing. Frequently, worship, theater, dance, music, and healing overlap. To go on a pilgrimage, to light a candle, to offer food, to sing a prayer or medical incantations, but also to meditate in silence like Buddhist monks, can be defined as rituals. Activities such as veterans’ parades, club meetings, Halloween parties, or even hand-shaking should be more properly labeled as ritual-like activities. Ritual is a specific observable mode of behavior present in all known societies. As a behavioral pattern, ritual can thus be seen as a way of defining or describing humans (and, according to biologists and ethologists, a way of defining animals in general).

International Workshop Breastfeeding(s) and Religions: A cross-cultural and Interdisciplinary Perspective from Antiquity to Present, Max-Weber-Kolleg (University of Erfurt), July 11-12, 2018.

This workshop builds on the expertise gained by editing Motherhood(s) and Polytheisms (edited by F.I. Pasche Guignard, G. Pedrucci, M. Scapini. Pàtron: Bologna. 2017), and Motherhood(s) and Monotheisms, forthcoming. The main goal of these collective volumes was to reconsider issues at the intersection between religion, gender, and not only womanhood generally, but motherhood specifically. Many scholars, and especially women researchers, successfully implemented the “gender turn” in the study of religions, as early as the 1980s in the English-speaking academia, and later in francophone countries and in Italy. This led to a much needed revisiting of the history of religions using “gender” as a critical category of analysis. Our assumption is that taking the “mother turn” in the study of religions might bring about some radical reconsiderations about not only gender, women, and mothers, but also power, authority, ritual, prescriptions regarding im/purity, conceptions of birth, life and death, cosmologies, myth, kinship, filiation, figures of mother goddesses, and the notion of “care” central to feminist theory.
We further call for revisiting the study of religions through the lenses of maternal theory, without dismissing, but rather, through building upon the rich scholarship on gender and religion. In this regard, the distinction made by S.S. Sered  between “womAn as symbol” (e.g., goddesses) and “womEn as agents” (real practice, historical mothers), and the distinction made by A. Rich  between “Motherhood as institution” and “Motherhood as experience” (women’s experience and relation to her own reproductive capacities) is particularly relevant here, especially as evidence strongly suggests a widespread gap between normative representation and actual practice.
Now, we feel that it is time for the “breastfeeding turn.” While breastfeeding is one of the most concrete and “natural” gesture in mothers’ lives, and their maternal work,  it has a quite problematic position in the maternity package, and its “cultural” perception changes greatly over places and centuries. Today, in the so-called “West”, breastfeeding is vigorously encouraged by a range of state, and voluntary, organizations. When the US pediatrician William Sears, “the man who remade motherhood”, created a theory of Attachment Parenting that entails “extreme” breastfeeding, he broke the trend started 50 years ago when the medical and industrial male lobbies strongly cooperated to promote artificial milk. Even in the twenty-first century context, which strongly supports breastfeeding, and in which the media is saturated with images of scantily-clad, bare-breasted, or virtually bare-breasted, women, the act of nursing in public remains highly controversial – and so are explicit images of maternity more generally (just remember the uproar caused by Demi Moore’s naked late pregnancy photographs in the 90s) – as demonstrated by the frequent news reports about women being banned for breastfeeding in public spaces such as swimming pools, or hotel foyers, for example.
Evidently, the history is mixed, and it is still necessary to distinguish between the promotion of breast-feeding in a general sense, and the limits on its specific performance and display. This issue examines both the biological process of breastfeeding (which connects women’s bodies to infants’ bodies, involving biological, medical  and sociocultural anthropology, body anthropology, linguistics) and broader questions of infants and young child feeding (which require a deep understanding of concepts such as reciprocity, commensality, nurture, and household meal cycles), including its relationships to sexuality, embodiment, and the important policy issues of women’s employment (breast-milk as the ultimate slow food, see the exhibition La grande madre at EXPO 2015), exclusive breastfeeding, and complementary breastfeeding (involving cultural and evolutionary anthropology, ethnography, and demography). Interdisciplinary research in both semiotics and history may provide new perspectives on embodiment and how breast-milk creates social relationships. Even complex public health policy issues such as HIV and contaminations in breast-milk lead to considerations of embodiment, power, and gender.
More specifically, how do religions deal with breastfeeding? The aim is to analyze how religious discourses have described and influenced such a natural and strictly female practice. Within a religious discourse, breastfeeding(s) can be biological, spiritual, transgressive (for example, babies breastfed by animals, saints breastfed by the Virgin Mary, old men breastfed by young women). Greek and Roman goddesses, for instance, except in some rare and specific exceptions, do not breastfeed (they avoid biological aspects of motherhood in general), but in the Egyptian narratives breast-milk is notoriously central for Horus (and the Pharaoh). Does a divine child need breast-milk and why? What about other polytheistic systems, past and modern? If we come to monotheisms, breastfeeding is also an important issue. Not only Islamic cultures (milk kinship and the related prohibitions), but also Jewish and Christian traditions develop discourses on breastfeeding (see, most recently, Pope Bergoglio’s words on breastfeeding during mass). How can we explain the different attitudes towards breastfeeding in religious discourse? To what extent (male) religious authorities and sacred texts dictate/ed maternal practices in a normative way? Do they tell women how, how long, when, and where to breastfeed? Do they blame women who don’t have milk, or who decide not to breastfeed? To what extent do women feel free to transgress without blaming themselves for not being a “good” mother? Can we trace any significant differences with the so-called “religions dominated by women?”
We call for papers about case studies on the theoretical framework outlined,  especially but not exclusively for those in which women’s responses to religious norms can be traced. For Antiquity, papers with epistemological reflections on how we can make “(maternal) silence speak” in addition to case studies, if feasible, will be particularly welcomed.
If you wish to submit a proposal for this International Workshop (proceedings will be published in open access after a double peer review), please send a title and a short (200-300 words) abstract to giulia.pedrucci@gmail.com until December 10, 2017.

Le but de ce bref article est de présenter quelques nouveaux témoignages sur la possible présence d’un culte dédié à Cybèle en Sicile, un culte qui pourrait suggérer l’existence d’un lien entre l’île et le Proche-Orient, dans lequel les colons grecs du continent n’ont pas nécessairement joué le rôle de médiateurs.
The aim of the present article is to present some new evidence of the possibility of a cult dedicated to Cybele in Sicily, which could suggest the existence of contacts between the Near East and Sicily before the Greek colonization.
Mots-clés: Cybèle, Proche-Orient, Sicile, nouveaux archéologiques témoignages
Keywords : Cybele, Near East, Sicily, new archaeological evidences.

Nurses and other Roles related to Childhood: Arrephoria and Matralia in
Comparison

In the Greek and Roman society child-care involved several people besides the biological mother:
nurses, wet-nurses, and, at least in the Roman world, aunts (in particular the mother's sisters).
Their role – especially in the case of wet-nurses – must have been particularly important, due to
the quite high rate of maternal mortality, or when mothers' milk production was lacking. This
phenomenon and the belief that genetic characters – but also the evil eye – could be transmitted
via milk, was bound to have important consequences. People looked at wet-nurses with suspicion.
Moreover, some mothers might have felt a sense of jealousy, due to the closeness of wet-nurses
to their children. In this chapter, we ask if all these aspects had an impact on the religious sphere.
Were such women involved in rituals linked to child-protection? In the first part, Giulia Pedrucci
hypothesizes that the Greek Arrephorae, while performing a rite which evoked Erichthonios' story,
were supported by elder women – an old aunt, a grandmother? – provided with a kourotrophic
attitude. In the second part of this chapter, Marianna Scapini examines the impact of nurses and
maternal aunts on religion within the Roman context. The focus is on the Matralia ceremony and
on the goddess celebrated therein, Mater Matuta.

This article aims to analyze analogies and differences in beliefs concerning breastfeeding
in ancient medicine and in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Sicily. The two main sources are the Corpus Hippocraticum and the works of the folklorist and doctor
Giuseppe Pitré. Even though the historical context is completely different, outward similarities
are impressive. The content might have been changed, but the container looks quite the same. The medical and folkloric knowledge, indeed, can be labeled as “of longue
durée”, and Sicily notoriously was one of the most important Greek lands.

In the first I will catalogue the sources (not numerous and primarily medical) that describe the use of human milk and menstrual blood in practices which can be associated with magic. These sources will be divided into scientific (i.e., based on so-called “expert models”, which belong to an élite of intellectuals) and non-scientific ones (i.e., based on so-called “folk models”, which belong to common people), even if an osmotic interaction between them is likely.
After this, I will try to motivate their interpretation as “magical” mainly for four reasons: 1) the nature of these humors, which are strictly related to women; 2) the homeopathic mechanism similia similibus curantur (and also similia similibus adtrahuntur); 3) the characters (human and superhuman) often associated with these practices; and 4) the chromatic symbolism.

This edited volume is intended as a follow-up to Motherhood(s) and Polytheisms, which analyzed the modalities through which polytheist systems construct and represent themselves, with a focus on the topic of divine maternity. The construction of motherhood of the divinities has an influence on the concrete practices of motherhood (whether biological or social). We have, on the one hand, " woman as symbol " and, on the other, " women as agents, " a distinction made by Susan Starr Sered that echoes that made by Adrienne Rich between " motherhood as an institution " and mothering, as a feminine experience and a woman's relationship with her own powers of reproductions. Both distinctions are relevant. Sources suggest a certain gap between the representations and constructions of motherhood and its effective practice. The purpose of this new edited volume is to analyze how the maternal paradigm is constructed for believers (men, including members of the clergy, and women, including those who are not mothers) in monotheist religious, in spite of the limits of this type of classifications (Judaism, Christianity, and not only Catholicism, Islam, but also Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, and other systems). We also aim at examining which were the constraints of maternal practices, from antiquity until today, that often have turned the new status of mother a problematic and contradictory moment for women, often divided between what she is told is the right thing to do and what she would feel like doing for her child. Pope Luciani, during his very short mandate, affirmed that " God is mother, " a concept reclaimed and made even more " familiar " but at the same time attenuated, by the Pope Francis, according to whom God loves like a mom. But who, exactly, is a " good mother " ? Through which ways, by whom and why was such a paradigm constructed? Can a woman be a good believer without being a mother? Is it necessary cancelling femininity or sexuality in the name of motherhood? To which extent has religion influenced the lasting stereotype of the total abnegation of the mother? We will investigate issues that are strikingly relevant for contemporary times, among others:-religious perspectives on family planning and the construction of gendered roles in procreation and parenting, especially those that are conditioned by religion, with particular references to surrogacy (surrogate pregnancy); motherhood outside wedlock; the role of mothers-in-law; the absence or negation of paternity;-symbolical or social mothers such as figures like the godmother or the abbess;-motherhood denied to saints, martyrs, nuns, and, perhaps figures of the feminine clergy;

Both literary and material evidence strongly suggest that wet and dry nurses played a central role within the ancient world. A peculiar declination of the figure of the Greek and Roman wet-nurse are animal nurses, recalled by both literary texts and iconography. There are plenty of ancient legends concerning abandoned children breastfed by animals, such as Romulus, Telephus, and Zeus. These breastfeeding animals can be ascribed to the category of the “adjuvant” that is central in the myths concerning the biography of divine and legendary founders and kings. Adjuvants can be animals, either domestic or wild,
or human beings, and mostly figures socially excluded belonging to specific social groups: shepherds, swineherds, washerwomen, slaves and even prostitutes. They could be also nymphs who live, like animals, in natural habitats (where babies are usually abandoned). Our aim is to suggest that those babies with an extraordinary future in front of them inherit something from their animal and/or wild nurses via milk.

Lo scopo del presente contributo è analizzare le testimonianze relative al culto di Cibele nel periodo precedente a quello augusteo, con speciale attenzione per il carme 63 di Catullo, e porle in relazione con l’atteggiamento e la politica di Augusto in materia religiosa, in particolare nei confronti della Magna Mater. Ne risulterà un quadro straordinariamente ambiguo, in linea con la natura stessa della dea.

This edited volume is intended as a follow-up to Motherhood(s) and Polytheisms, which analyzed the modalities through which polytheist systems construct and represent themselves, with a focus on the topic of divine maternity. The construction of motherhood of the divinities has an influence on the concrete practices of motherhood (whether biological or social). We have, on the one hand, " woman as symbol " and, on the other, " women as agents, " a distinction made by Susan Starr Sered that echoes that made by Adrienne Rich between " motherhood as an institution " and mothering, as a feminine experience and a woman's relationship with her own powers of reproductions. Both distinctions are relevant. Sources suggest a certain gap between the representations and constructions of motherhood and its effective practice. The purpose of this new edited volume is to analyze how the maternal paradigm is constructed for believers (men, including members of the clergy, and women, including those who are not mothers) in monotheist religious, in spite of the limits of this type of classifications (Judaism, Christianity, and not only Catholicism, Islam, but also Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, and other systems). We also aim at examining which were the constraints of maternal practices, from antiquity until today, that often have turned the new status of mother a problematic and contradictory moment for women, often diveded between what she is told is the right thing to do and what she would feel like doing for her child.

SVMMARIVM - De Agathae cultu Catinae celebrato disseritur. Iudicium viri docti Emmanuelis Ciaceri, qui antiquos ritus ad Isidem pertinentes in Agathae sacris permanere putabat, probari nequit. Hoc unum videtur verisimiliter adfirmari posse, et Isidem et Agatham sacris
coli solere ut matres nutricesque lactantes adiuvarent et protegerent.

Many scholars affirm that Greek women didn’t breast-feed their own children. In saying that, they normally quote Soranus of Ephesus, who actually spoke of a Roman costume, and what’s more circumscribable in the time (the Roman imperial period). But, if we look carefully to the Greek sources from the archaic and classical period, we find out, on the contrary, that Greek women did usually breast-feed their own children. It is probably for this reason why we don’t find in the Greek sources many references to wet-nurses (and consequently to the effect on the infant and on its genos by the consumption of alien milk). This does not mean, however, that the same kind of beliefs on the capacity of human milk of transmitting genetic characters (beliefs due to the common theory of the emogenesis of the milk) were not shared by both Greeks and Romans, as some authors seem to confirm.
Once established that Greek women, generally speaking, used to breast-feed, the question is why scenes of breast-feeding were quite infrequent in Greek art. At this regards, the article focuses on the concept of aidós, in part to be connected with the emogenesis of human milk, and on the universal sense of “superstition” and fear connected with certain extremely delicate and private phases of woman life (just think to the evil eye), instead of insisting, as many scholars did in the past decades, on taboos, magic, misogyny.

In passato alcuni studiosi hanno sostenuto che le donne greche, come quelle romane descritte da Sorano, non allattassero personalmente i loro figli, preferendo assumere nutrici a questo scopo. Sorano, però, parlava di una “moda” in voga soltanto nella Roma imperiale. Da un’attenta analisi delle fonti greche, infatti, si può intuire che le madri nella Grecia di epoca arcaica e classica tendenzialmente allattassero. Probabilmente per questa ragione le fonti greche non si sono mai soffermate su problemi al contrario molto dibattuti a Roma, come le conseguenze che poteva avere un latte alieno sul bambino, e, di conseguenza, sull’intero genos. Scandagliano però con attenzione le testimonianze greche possiamo cogliere anche in esse qualche riferimento, seppure meno esplicito, all’esistenza di latti con caratteristiche diverse e in grado di veicolare determinati caratteri genetici.
Una volta stabilito che le donne elleniche allattavano, si è cercato di dare una spiegazione alla rarità di immagini di donne che allattano nella Grecia continentale, individuando principalmente tre motivi: il concetto molto radicato nella cultura greca di aidós, la teoria dell’emogenesi dal latte materno dal sangue mestruale e un più generico sentimento di “scaramanzia” e paura connessi con alcuni momenti molto delicati della vita della donna e del bambino (si pendi a esempio al malocchio). Contemporaneamente, si è cercato di prendere le distanze da concetti molto abusati in passato, come tabù, magia e misoginia.

Marked by its conflicting etymology and predisposed by its past use in theology as a pejorative and biased term, syncretism has entered the study of religion, including anthropology, for the purpose of describing processes in religion of integration, acculturation, transformation and innovation in various fields of study. In order to reach an agreement on this heated debate one must take onto consideration all the aspects connected with the category, whether we are talking about syncretism as a descriptive, taxonomic, discursive, political, or explanatory term.

Since women are socially and naturally inferior to men, they must be educated by men,
especially as to the only role which can give them a dignity and an almost male status: being
mother. Greek authors wrote a lot to explain women that if they had not been mothers, they
would pay a very high price on a physical and a social viewpoint. We will particularly focus on
two kinds of sources, medical and theatrical, which highlight some very powerful and extraordinarily
long-lasting stereotypes, such as those of mater dolorosa [painful mother], mater luctuosa
[sorrowful mother] and mater terribilis [cruel mother] or that of women suffering from hysteria
for not becoming mothers. With a time leap of thousands of years, we will conclude analyzing
some beliefs concerning pregnancy and breastfeeding in contemporary Sicily, with surprising
analogies with respect to ancient Greece.

Sicily has an impressive number of terracottas representing women with children, between them we find a very rare motif in the ancient world (above all in continental Greece) : the breast-feeding woman. In the effort to explain this extraordinary archaeological documentation, it is necessary to review the very powerful « myths » of the « Sicilian Great Mother » and of Sicily as a land completely sacred to Demeter and Kore. The origins of the cults connected with the terrecottas of women with children have to be searched for, in our opinion, in the ante-hellenic cultures, taking onto account the possibility of direct contacts with the ancient Near East.

Within a larger study on breast-feeding in ancient Greece, we dwelt on
four subjects (the superstitions concerning menstrual blood, milk and dairy
products consumption by the Athenians, different kinds of milk and beliefs
related to the transmission of hereditary characteristics through human milk,
the connection between milk, breast and madness) on which we have identified
a certain number of neglected sources. Starting from these, we can gain
not only some mosaic tiles of the overall fragmentary view on habits and
beliefs about breast-feeding, but also, more generally, helpful hints on some
aspects of the Greek world and mentality that we barely know. In attempting
to reach some general conclusions, we have also considered the iconographic
sources, trying to explain, in part at least, the reason for the almost
complete absence of scenes of breast-feeding in the archaic and classical art.

Questo volume nasce come una raccolta degli scritti di Giulia Pedrucci sulla maternità e sull’allattamento nel mondo greco e romano a partire dalla tesi di dottorato, ma diventa strada facendo qualcosa di significativamente diverso e innovativo. L’opera, infatti, rappresenta il primo lavoro monografico in Italia, e più in generale nel panorama accademico europeo, che si occupa del costruttivo dialogo fra gli studi classici, in particolare quelli concernenti la scienza delle religioni, con gli studi sulla maternità, di matrice nord-americana, costruendone le basi epistemologiche.
Il tratto distintivo, saliente, è l’audacia, l’innovazione, il voler andare oltre. Oltre cosa? In primo luogo, oltre il concetto di disciplina. Questo libro non parla di inter-disciplinarietà, come tanti fanno esaltandola soltanto a parole; questo libro vuole essere, come ama dire Giulia Pedrucci, metadisciplinare o transdisciplinare, cioè, ap-punto, andare oltre il concetto stesso di disciplina.
L’autrice, non a caso, cita spesso nei suoi lavori (anche nel presente volume) un noto passo di Raffaele Pettazzoni, in cui l’insigne storico delle religioni spiega perché gli studiosi di questa disciplina non possono rimanere chiusi nel loro mondo, ma devono aprirsi a tutte le Scienze Umane.
L’audacia sta nel saper fare un passo indietro, tornare al passato, all’idea che l’homo non è cambiato nell’arco di due o tre millenni, e che di conseguenza esistono alcuni “universali” legati al sentire umano su cui costruire una ricerca basata sulla lunga durata.
L’audacia va a braccetto con la sfida; la sfida di Giulia Pedrucci è quella di porre le basi per una nuova disciplina accademica in cui confluiscano la scienza delle religioni e gli studi sulla maternità, coadiuvate vieppiù da tutte le discipline che possono risultare necessarie, valutando caso per caso.

PREFAZIONE di Attilio Mastrocinque
RINGRAZIAMENTI
L’ALLATTAMENTO (E LA MATERNITÀ) NEL MONDO GRECO E ROMANO 10 ANNI DOPO.
Per un’introduzione al volume e ad un nuovo percorso di studi fra scienza delle religioni e studi sulla maternità

PARTE I
DIVERSE MATERNITÀ

1. FRA GRECIA E ROMA: IL RUOLO DELLA NUTRICE E DI ALTRE FIGURE VICARIE E “DI ATTACCAMENTO” A FIANCO DELLA MADRE

1.1. L’arrivo di un bambino è un “affare di famiglia” (allargata)
1.1.1. Oikos e familia: per un’introduzione
1.1.2. Atteggiamenti genitori-figli in Grecia
1.1.3. Atteggiamenti genitori-figli a Roma
1.1.4. Atteggiamenti fratelli-sorelle e zii-nipoti a Roma (con un’al-lusione ad Antigone)
1.1.5. Altri membri dell’oikos e della familia: atteggiamenti nutrici e pedagoghi-padroni
1.1.6. Dagli atteggiamenti alla realtà: il ruolo (molto attivo) della madre dal concepimento all’educazione dei figli
1.1.6.1. Roma: socializzazione ed educazione del bambino
1.1.6.2. Grecia: concepimento, socializzazione ed educazione del bambino
1.2. L’arrivo di un bambino è un “affare di donne”. Mater uti fieres
1.2.1. Chi era presente al momento del parto (in base a fonti prevalentemente romane)
1.2.2. Fra rituali e giochi: l’educazione alla maternità per le fanciulle di casa (in base a fonti sia greche che romane)
1.2.3. Il ruolo delle nonne (in base a fonti sia greche che romane)
1.2.4. Altre figure
1.3. La balia e la nutrice come figure vicarie, materne, prossimali e “di attaccamento”
1.3.1. Precisazioni terminologiche
1.3.2. Schiave di famiglia e “relazioni pericolose”: una storia di sempre
1.3.3. La balia e la nutrice nelle fonti letterarie greche
1.3.4. La balia e la nutrice nelle fonti letterarie romane
1.3.5. La balia e la nutrice in Grecia, a Roma e nelle province imperiali: “istantanee” di vita quotidiana?
1.4. Madri in vendita: la maternità comprata, taciuta, vilipesa e menomata delle balie
1.4.1. La triste storia di Amalia Bagnacavalli, balia
1.4.2. Ritratto della balia ideale vs. analogie fra balia e prostituta (in base a fonti prevalentemente di epoca imperiale)
1.4.3. Dire balia è dire madre…
1.5. La balia e la nutrice fra affetto e sospetto, ovvero come queste donne diventano “streghe”
1.6. Conclusioni fra Grecia e Roma

2. L’OBBLIGO DI (IMPARARE) A ESSERE MADRI. MATERNITÀ (COME “ISTITUZIONE”) E PAIDEIA NEI TESTI MEDICI E TEATRALI

2.1. La maternità salutare: insegnamenti medici sul corpo femminile a partire dai testi ippocratici
2.2. La maternità va in scena: stereotipi femminili nel teatro e nell’epica greca
2.2.1. La madre dolorosa, ovvero la madre eroica
2.2.2. La madre luctuosa, ovvero la madre apais
2.2.3. La madre terribilis, ovvero la madre cagna
2.3. Conclusioni

3. LA MATERNITÀ “STEP BY STEP” NEL MITO. DISTALE E PROSSIMALE COME FACCE DI UN’UNICA MEDAGLIA

3.1. Artemide e la curotrofia
3.2. Atena, Demetra e l’educazione alla maternità
3.2.1. Atena e le arrefore
3.2.2. Demetra e Kore
3.3. Hera madre imperfetta, ma pur sempre madre
3.4. Giunone e Mater Matuta
3.4.1. Giunone: una, nessuna e centomila
3.4.1.1. Giunone, il matrimonio e il parto: significato e funzione di un “comportamento rovesciato” (M. Scapini)
3.4.2. Mater Matuta e i Matralia. Ovvero, dell’importanza di essere la zia materna nella religione romana (M. Scapini)
3.5. Ninfe, dee “minute”, Fortuna e Acca Larentia: ecco l’allattamento e il lavoro materno nella religione greca e romana
3.6. Riflessioni conclusive
3.7. Appendice. Chi curava la depressione post-partum?

APPENDICE. La “gravidanza isterica” della Pizia

1. Chi è la Pizia delfica?
2. Gli aspetti sessuali presenti nella divinazione della Pizia
3. Una vecchia campagnola isterica?
4. Pregiudizi di genere e corpi anormali. Conclusioni

PARTE II
ALLATTAMENTI DIVERSI

1. GRECIA, ROMA E ALTROVE: RIFLESSIONI ATTORNO ALL’ALLATTAMENTO IN UNA PROSPETTIVA TRANSCULTURALE E TRANSTEMPORALE (E TRANS-DISCIPLINARE)

1.1. Quando ad allattare non era soltanto la madre. Forme di co-allattamento nel mondo greco e romano
1.2. Allattamenti “trasgressivi”: l’allattamento “interspecies”, l’allattamento filiale e l’allattamento maschile
1.2.1. Essere umano?essere non umano
1.2.2. Uomo?bambino
1.2.3. Donna?adulto/anziano/anziana
1.2.4. …e le scimmie?
1.2.5. Conclusioni
1.3. ????? e malocchio: imbarazzi, ansie e timori delle madri dal concepimento all’allattamento
1.3.1. Di nuovo sull’allattamento
1.3.2. Allattare o non allattare? Co-allattare! Ovvero, quando tertium datur
1.3.3. Allattamento e ?????. Ovvero del seno materno “oltre Freud”
1.3.4. Allattamento e malocchio
1.3.5. Il parto (e la gravidanza) come fasi da non mostrare e proteggere
1.3.6. Le parole della gravidanza
1.3.7. Conclusioni
1.4. L’allattamento in Sicilia da Ippocrate a Giuseppe Pitré come caso di studio

2. LE CARATTERISTICHE DEL LATTE MATERNO NEL MONDO GRECO E ROMANO E LE IMPLICAZIONI DAL PUNTO DI VISTA RELIGIOSO

2.1. I condizionamenti “culturali” di una bevanda “naturale”
2.2. Dell’uso di sangue mestruale e latte materno fra medicina, religione e magia nel mondo greco e romano
2.2.1. Dell’uso di latte umano
2.2.2. Dell’uso di sangue mestruale
2.2.3. Il sottile confine fra medicina, magia e religione. E le cinquanta sfumature di rosso
2.2.4. Conclusioni
2.3. Relazioni pseudo e para-parentali basate sul latte materno
2.3.1. Allattamento e fratellanza: collactei e suntrophoi nella tragedia e nel mito
2.3.2. Allattamento e “adozione”: il caso di Hera ed Eracle
2.3.3. Lac ferinum: animali che allattano e altre balie “selvatiche” nel mito

BIBLIOGRAFIA

POSTER Beliefs on Milk and Breastfeeding in the Ancient World
POSTFAZIONE (DI UNA MADRE)

APPENDICE

Pourquoi allaiter un dieu? De la voie lactée à la route des vins dans les Dionysiaques de Nonnos de Panopolis di David Lorin
Introduction
1. Être enfant
2. Allaiter
3. Boire du vin
4. Mettre au monde
5. Conclusion : allaitement, maternité et création littéraire dans l’Antiquité tardive
Bibliographie

ILLUSTRAZIONI