Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Contributors -- Introduction -- Part 1 General Challenges and Reconsiderations -- 1 The Way of the Ascetics: Negative or Affirmative? -- 2 The Howl of Oedipus, the Cry of Héloïse: From Asceticism to Postmodern Ethics -- Part 2 Origins and Meanings of Asceticism -- 3 Women and Asceticism in Late Antiquity: The Refusal of Status and Gender -- 4 Christian Asceticism and the Emergence of the Monastic Tradition -- 5 Asceticism and Mysticism in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages -- 6 Practical, Theoretical, and Cultural Tracings in Late Ancient Asceticism: Response to the Three Preceding Papers -- 7 Rejecting the Body, Refining the Body: Some Remarks on the Development of Platonist Asceticism -- 8 Primitive Christianity as an Ascetic Movement -- 9 Tibetan Buddhist Perspectives on Asceticism -- 10 Trajectories of Ascetic Behavior: Response to the Three Preceding Papers -- Part 3 Hermeneutics of Asceticism -- 11 Asceticism and Anthropology: Enkrateia and "Double Creation" in Early Christianity -- 12 Ascetic Closure and the End of Antiquity -- 13 Pain, Power, and Personhood: Ascetic Behavior in the Ancient Mediterranean -- 14 Asceticism-Audience and Resistance: Response to the Three Preceding Papers -- 15 Deconstruction of the Body in Indian Asceticism -- 16 Ascetic Moods in Greek and Latin Literature -- 17 Asceticism in the Church of Syria: The Hermeneutics of Early Syrian Monasticism -- 18 Ascetic Moods, Hermeneutics, and Bodily Deconstruction: Response to the Three Preceding Papers -- Part 4 Aesthetics of Asceticism -- 19 The Founding of the New Laura -- 20 Dreaming the Body: An Aesthetics of Asceticism -- 21 Mirabai as Wife and Yogi -- 22 Understanding Asceticism-Testing a Typology: Response to the Three Preceding Papers.

23 The Significance of Food in Hebraic-African Thought and the Role of Fasting in the Ethiopian Church -- 24 Simeon the New Theologian: An Ascetical Theology for Middle-Byzantine Monks -- 25 Asceticism and the Compensations of Art -- 26 Sensuality and Mysticism-The Islamic Tradition: Response to the Three Preceding Papers -- Part 5 Politics of Asceticism -- 27 Asceticism and the Moral Good: A Tale of Two Pleasures -- 28 Gender and Uses of the Ascetic in an Islamist Text -- 29 Maximus the Confessor on the Affections in Historical Perspective -- 30 Toward a Politics of Asceticism: Response to the Three Preceding Papers -- 31 Renunciation and Gender Issues in the Śri Vaisnava Community -- 32 Body Politic among the Brides of Christ: Paul and the Origins of Christian Sexual Renunciation -- 33 Athanasius of Alexandria and the Ascetic Movement of His Time -- 34 The Politics of Piety: Response to the Three Preceding Papers -- Part 6 The Discourse Refracted -- 35 The Ascetic Impulse in Religious Life: A General Response -- Appendix: Ascetica Miscellanea -- 36 The Battle for the Body in Manichaean Asceticism -- 37 The Allegorization of Gender: Plato and Philo on Spiritual Childbearing -- 38 Shame and Sex in Late Antique Judaism -- 39 A Theory of the Social Function of Asceticism -- 40 Psychophysiological and Comparative Analysis of Ascetico-Meditational Discipline: Toward a New Theory of Asceticism -- 41 Flagellation and the French Counter-Reformation: Asceticism, Social Discipline, and the Evolution of a Penitential Culture -- 42 Practices and Meanings of Asceticism in Contemporary Religious Life and Culture: A Panel Discussion -- Selected Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z.