You are welcome to attend a public lecture with Martti Nissinen. Nissinen is Professor of Old Testament studies at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Theology.

The image of the Assyrian king represents everything one can expect of ideal hegemonic masculinity. This hegemony corresponded to the Assyrian royal ideology, and it was communicated by different media, including texts and images. The hegemony of the Assyrian king was based on hierarchical and ideological inequality; in real life, however, this basis was anything but solid. In this lecture, I will spotlight Esarhaddon’s masculinity from the angles of the social, the cosmic, and the physical body. This three-bodied perspective shows how Esarhaddon’s masculinity depended on his hegemonic position as the king; his relations with other agents, especially his trusted scholars; and his personal life as a family member who suffered from chronic health problems. Therefore, even the hegemonic masculinity of the Assyrian king was a vulnerable, unstable, and contradictory quality.