Competing Identities

Publisher Description

Since earliest Christian martyrologies, there have been abundant uses of the metaphor of analysis of ancient athletics and their socio-religious importance in the era of the early Roman Empire. This book explores these metaphors-agonistic and competitive in their very nature-as rhetoric that fashions a resistant subjectivity that constrasts, contradicts, and even partially creates or demonstrates political and national identity, gender, and ideological strength. As rhetoric that crafts  identity, these metaphors also invite inquiry into the construction of modern notions of "subjectivity" and "autobiography." Finally, the study of these metaphors offers opportunity to inquire into the process of scholarly analysis and appropriation of antique texts.