Binding the Heart

This article proposes a combined analysis of late ancient magical and rabbinic texts that deal with control and subordination of renegade enslaved persons. These texts reveal some of the ways in which slaveholders utilized physical coercion, whether real or imagined, to transform or overpower enslaved persons’ will and interior dispositions. The first part of the article examines two spells used for returning runaway slaves (or otherwise, for preventing slaves from running away), with emphasis on these spells’ resonance with erotic magic that is meant to transform the beloved’s feelings toward the lover. The second part of the article argues that talmudic discussions of enslaved persons’ transition into slavery display similar tensions between autonomy and coercion, between the fantasy that slaves would form a genuine commitment to their enslaver and the fear that acknowledging a slave’s independent will would undo the enslaver’s power altogether. Taken together, these texts offer a series of powerful images through which we may begin to explore some of the discursive and performative tools that late ancient Jewish enslavers used to negotiate their anxieties regarding those they enslaved

Cardiology · Chemistry · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · Medicine · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Medieval History and Crusades · Internal Medicine