Glossary, Selected Bibliography, Index Naked truths are truths
that are sometimes uncomfortably presented, stripped of artifice
or ornament, to be accepted at face value. Truths concerning
such fundamental aspects of human interrelations as gender
identity, desire, and power are far from transparent and
natural, even in their denuded and dismantled incarnations. This
is especially so in the instance of artistic creations and
representations that serve the larger educational goals of
social and political ideology. Contemporary feminist approaches
that accentuate the centrality of gender and sexuality as core
constructs in the interpretation of past and present cultures
have been voiced in academic disciplines over the last several
decades. Only recently, however, have these critical
methodologies been applied to the visual arts and material
culture of the classical Mediterranean world. While social and
cultural anthropologists have utilized feminist perspectives
quite aggressively in the economic and socio-pol