Manly Suffering: Trauma, Masculinity and Paul

Abstract:Using a trauma lens to read 2 Corinthians 11:23-27, at the intersections of imperial discourse, masculine rhetorical claims as well as forms of imperially induced subaltern masculinity, illustrates their complex and intricate connections. The Roman Empire, which permeated the context of the Pauline letters, embodied and pervasively inscribed trauma on the vast majority of its subjects. Masculinity, often connected to trauma in a one-sided and simplistic way, requires analysis beyond stereotypes, ancient or modern. Second Corinthians' traumatised man pushing back against the Empire and his own emasculation, in ways that sustain the heroic Paul of Christianity, only partially engages the text, even if history is ambiguous testimony to its rhetorical success.