Maigreur et minceur dans les sociétés anciennes. Grèce, Orient, Rome

Studies on Body and Representations in Antiquity have considerably increased since thirty years in the Anglo-Saxon world and in France. Leanness and thinness have been however studied very little for themselves, most of the time in relation to obesity and overweight, very often associated with luxury and abundance among elites. This book, resulting from an international multidisciplinary conference, offers to analyse specifically leanness and thinness in Antiquity (from the 3rd millennium BC to the fall of the Roman Empire) throught contributions of more than twenty researchers, French and foreign: for the first time, scholars try to define these two concepts across time in very different geographical and cultural contexts - Egypt, Mesopotamia, Middle East, Greek and Roman worlds, using complementary approaches (historical, iconographic, medical, philosophical, literary, aesthetic, anthropological and theological). At a time when questions about food and eating behaviors are growing in our contemporary societies, such research, without claiming to be exhaustive, offers a renewed vision of aesthetic conceptions, social status and even relationships with food in Antiquity. They also open the way to a critical reflection on the origins and the stakes of the diktat of thinness which weighs currently on Western societies.