How do religions deal with breastfeeding? This is the main question we aimed at answering during the International Workshop Breastfeeding(s) and Religions: Normative Prescriptions and Individual Appropriations. Cross-Cultural and Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Antiquity to the Present (Max-Weber-Kolleg, University of Erfurt, July 11-12, 2018). The goal is to analyze how religious discourses have described and influenced such a natural and strictly female practice. Within religious discourse, breastfeeding(s) can be seen as biological, spiritual, or even 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? To what extent do (male) religious authorities and sacred texts dictate 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 \u201cgood\u201d mother and obedient member of a specific religious tradition? In which way can a mother’s decision not to breastfeed be perceived as religious individualization and autonomy from social inter-connectedness? Which kinds of rituals do women perform in relation to breastfeeding and which deities do they appropriate, and eventually alter and reinvent for this purpose? These are just some of the questions that can arise by putting together \u201cbreastfeeding\/ s\u201d and \u201creligion\/s\u201d, and which clearly show how and why \u201cbreastfeeding\/s\u201d and \u201creligion\/s\u201d can definitely go hand in hand with academic research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How do religions deal with breastfeeding? This is the main […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":248140,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[72356,51773],"product_tag":[],"editore":[27576],"autore":[37074],"curatore":[],"condizione":[26342],"lingua":[24181],"tipo_edizione":[],"tipo_pubblicazione":[24232],"dewey":[26206,25542],"genere":[],"contenuto":[24150,24227,24238],"class_list":{"0":"post-312292","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-archaeology","7":"product_cat-religion-and-theology","8":"editore-scienze-e-lettere","9":"condizione-new","10":"lingua-inglese-en","11":"tipo_pubblicazione-monograph","12":"dewey-history-of-ancient-world-to-ca-499","13":"dewey-religion","14":"contenuto-biografia","15":"contenuto-biografia-en","16":"contenuto-indice-en","18":"first","19":"instock","20":"shipping-taxable","21":"purchasable","22":"product-type-simple"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n