Shameless The Canine and the Feminine in Ancient Greece [Hardcover]

The figure of the dog is a paradox. As in so many cultures, past and present, the dog in ancient Greece was seen as the animal closest to humans, even as it elicited from them the most negative representations. Still a loaded term today, the wordbitchnot only signified shamelessness and a lack of self-control but was also exclusively figured as female. Woman and dogs in the Greek imagination were intimately intertwined, and in this careful, engaging analysis, Cristiana Franco explores the ancients' complex relationship with both. By analyzing the relationship between humans and dogs as depicted in a vast array of myths, proverbs, spontaneous metaphors, and comic jokes, Franco in particular shows how the symbolic overlap between dog and woman provided the conceptual tools to maintain feminine subordination.

Intended for general readers as well as scholars,Shamelessextends the boundaries of classics and anthropology, forming a model of the sensitive work that can be done to illuminate how deeply animals are imbricated in human history. The English translation has been revised and expanded from the original Italian edition, and it includes a new methodological appendix by the author that points the way toward future work in the emerging field of human-animal studies.

Cristiana Francois Aggregate Professor of Classics at the University for Foreigners in Siena, Italy.

Francos book is a substantial step forward in the study of animals in ancient societies and is so clear and accessible that the reader may not realize that it is also very innovative. The book will attract wide attentionnot easy for a book based on ancient Greek evidencefrom scholars of anthropology, archaeology, and even those interested in animal rights, feminism, ecology, and cultural history.Alessandro Barchiesi, Professor of Classics at Stanford University

This book is a contribution to our understanding of the ancient Greekml"