Download or read book Reading Writing and Bookish Circles in the Ancient Mediterranean written by Jonathan D.H. Norton and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-06-30 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By integrating conversations across disciplines, especially focusing on classical studies and Jewish and Christian studies, this volume addresses several imbalances in scholarship on reading and textual activity in the ancient Mediterranean. Contributors intentionally place Jewish, Christian, Roman, Greek and other reading circles back into their encompassing historical context, avoiding subdivisions along modern subject lines, divisions still bearing marks of cultural and ideological interests. In their examination, contributors avoid dwelling upon traditional methodological debates over orality vs. literacy and social classifications of literacy, instead turning their attention to the social-historical: groups of people, circles and networks, strata and class, scribal culture, material culture, epigraphic and papyrological evidence, functions and types of literacy and the social relationships that all of these entail. Overall, the volume contributes to an emerging and important interdisciplinary collaboration between specialists in ancient literacy, encouraging future discussion between two currently divided fields.
Download or read book Reading Writing and Bookish Circles in the Ancient Mediterranean Education Literary Culture and Religious Practice in the Ancient World written by Garrick Allen Jonathan D.H. Norton (et ál) and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Reading Writing and Bookish Circles in the Ancient Mediterranean written by Jonathan D.H. Norton and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-06-30 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By integrating conversations across disciplines, especially focusing on classical studies and Jewish and Christian studies, this volume addresses several imbalances in scholarship on reading and textual activity in the ancient Mediterranean. Contributors intentionally place Jewish, Christian, Roman, Greek and other reading circles back into their encompassing historical context, avoiding subdivisions along modern subject lines, divisions still bearing marks of cultural and ideological interests. In their examination, contributors avoid dwelling upon traditional methodological debates over orality vs. literacy and social classifications of literacy, instead turning their attention to the social-historical: groups of people, circles and networks, strata and class, scribal culture, material culture, epigraphic and papyrological evidence, functions and types of literacy and the social relationships that all of these entail. Overall, the volume contributes to an emerging and important interdisciplinary collaboration between specialists in ancient literacy, encouraging future discussion between two currently divided fields.
Download or read book Situating Josephus Life within Ancient Autobiography written by Davina Grojnowski and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-06-15 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Davina Grojnowski examines Life, the autobiographical text written by ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, from a literary studies perspective and in relation to genre theory. In order to generate a framework of literary practices, Josephus' Life and other texts within Josephus' literary spheres-all associated with autobiography-are the focus of a detailed literary analysis which compares the texts in terms of established features, such as structure, topoi and subject. This methodological examination enables a better understanding of the literary boundaries of autobiography in antiquity and illustrates Josephus' thought-process during the composition of Life. Grojnowski also offers a comparative study of autobiographical practices in Greek and Roman literature, demonstrating the value of passive education supplementing what had been taught actively and its impact on authors and audiences. As a result, she provides insight into the development of literary practices in reaction to various forms of education and subsequently reflects on the religious (self-) views of authors and audiences. Simultaneously, Grojnowski reacts to current discourses on ancient literary genres and demonstrates that ancient autobiography existed as a teachable literary genre in classical literature.
Download or read book Ancient Literacies written by William A Johnson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-05 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Classicists have been slow to take advantage of the important advances in the way that literacy is viewed in other disciplines (including in particular cognitive psychology, socio-linguistics, and socio-anthropology). On the other hand, historians of literacy continue to rely on outdated work by classicists (mostly from the 1960's and 1970's) and have little access to the current reexamination of the ancient evidence. This timely volume attempts to formulate new interesting ways of talking about the entire concept of literacy in the ancient world--literacy not in the sense of whether 10% or 30% of people in the ancient world could read or write, but in the sense of text-oriented events embedded in a particular socio-cultural context. The volume is intended as a forum in which selected leading scholars rethink from the ground up how students of classical antiquity might best approach the question of literacy in the past, and how that investigation might materially intersect with changes in the way that literacy is now viewed in other disciplines. The result will give readers new ways of thinking about specific elements of "literacy" in antiquity, such as the nature of personal libraries, or what it means to be a bookseller in antiquity; new constructionist questions, such as what constitutes reading communities and how they fashion themselves; new takes on the public sphere, such as how literacy intersects with commercialism, or with the use of public spaces, or with the construction of civic identity; new essentialist questions, such as what "book" and "reading" signify in antiquity, why literate cultures develop, or why literate cultures matter. The book derives from a conference (a Semple Symposium held in Cincinnati in April 2006) and includes new work from the most outstanding scholars of literacy in antiquity (e.g., Simon Goldhill, Joseph Farrell, Peter White, and Rosalind Thomas).
Download or read book Ancient Literacy written by William V. HARRIS and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How many people could read and write in the ancient world of the Greeks and Romans? No one has previously tried to give a systematic answer to this question. Most historians who have considered the problem at all have given optimistic assessments, since they have been impressed by large bodies of ancient written material such as the graffiti at Pompeii. They have also been influenced by a tendency to idealize the Greek and Roman world and its educational system. In Ancient Literacy W. V. Harris provides the first thorough exploration of the levels, types, and functions of literacy in the classical world, from the invention of the Greek alphabet about 800 B.C. down to the fifth century A.D. Investigations of other societies show that literacy ceases to be the accomplishment of a small elite only in specific circumstances. Harris argues that the social and technological conditions of the ancient world were such as to make mass literacy unthinkable. Noting that a society on the verge of mass literacy always possesses an elaborate school system, Harris stresses the limitations of Greek and Roman schooling, pointing out the meagerness of funding for elementary education. Neither the Greeks nor the Romans came anywhere near to completing the transition to a modern kind of written culture. They relied more heavily on oral communication than has generally been imagined. Harris examines the partial transition to written culture, taking into consideration the economic sphere and everyday life, as well as law, politics, administration, and religion. He has much to say also about the circulation of literary texts throughout classical antiquity. The limited spread of literacy in the classical world had diverse effects. It gave some stimulus to critical thought and assisted the accumulation of knowledge, and the minority that did learn to read and write was to some extent able to assert itself politically. The written word was also an instrument of power, and its use was indispensable for the construction and maintenance of empires. Most intriguing is the role of writing in the new religious culture of the late Roman Empire, in which it was more and more revered but less and less practiced. Harris explores these and related themes in this highly original work of social and cultural history. Ancient Literacy is important reading for anyone interested in the classical world, the problem of literacy, or the history of the written word.
Download or read book Roman Literary Culture written by Elaine Fantham and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 1999-04-21 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with Cicero and his older contemporary Varro, Roman Literary Culture reviews both the public and the more private literary forms of the Augustan Age, when an elite reared on the primacy of Greek culture first confronted - and took pride in - their Roman literary inheritance. By the first century A.D., Fantham explains, Roman models dominated, and a new readership was evolving which included women and non-elite readers in the provinces who benefitted from a newly emerging commercial book trade. The second century brought a recurrence of Greek influence, as celebrated Greek rhetoricians and performers gave rise to a hybrid culture in which Greek and Latin values intertwined. The book concludes with a look at the ecumenical spread of Latin and its perpetuation through Christian literature.
Download or read book Writing Around the Ancient Mediterranean written by Philippa M. Steele and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2022-10-06 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing in the ancient Mediterranean existed against a backdrop of very high levels of interaction and contact. In the societies around its shores, writing was a dynamic practice that could serve many purposes – from a tool used by elites to control resources and establish their power bases to a symbol of local identity and a means of conveying complex information and ideas. This volume presents a group of papers by members of the Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) research team and visiting fellows, offering a range of different perspectives and approaches to problems of writing in the ancient Mediterranean. They focus on practices, viewing writing as something that people do within a wider social and cultural context, and on adaptations, considering the ways in which writing changed and was changed by the people using it.
Download or read book Ancient Literacies written by William Allen Johnson and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume attempts to formulate new interesting ways of talking about the entire concept of literacy in the ancient world - literacy not in the sense of whether 10% or 30% of people in the ancient world could read or write, but in the sense of text-oriented events embedded in a particular socio-cultural context.
Download or read book Writing and Power in the Roman World written by Hella Eckardt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the material practice of ancient literacy through a contextual examination of Roman writing equipment.
Download or read book Lived Wisdom in Jewish Antiquity written by Elisa Uusimäki and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-06-03 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moving away from focusing on wisdom as a literary genre, this book delves into the lived, embodied and formative dimensions of wisdom as they are delineated in Jewish sources from the Persian, Hellenistic and early Roman eras. Considering a diverse body of texts beyond later canonical boundaries, the book demonstrates that wisdom features not as an abstract quality, but as something to be performed and exercised at both the individual and community level. The analysis specifically concentrates on notions of a 'wise' person, including the rise of the sage as an exemplary figure. It also looks at how ancestral figures and contemporary teachers are imagined to manifest and practice wisdom, and considers communal portraits of a wise and virtuous life. In so doing, the author demonstrates that the previous focus on wisdom as a category of literature has overshadowed significant questions related to wisdom, behaviour and social life. Jewish wisdom is also contextualized in relation to its wider ancient Mediterranean milieu, making the book valuable for biblical scholars, classicists, scholars of religion and the ancient Near East and theologians.
Download or read book Knowledge Text and Practice in Ancient Technical Writing written by Marco Formisano and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-19 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationship between theory and practice, in other words between norms indicated in a text and their extra-textual application, is one of the most fascinating issues in the history and theory of science. Yet this aspect has often been taken for granted and never explored in depth. The essays contained in this volume provide a complex and nuanced discussion of this relationship as it emerges in ancient Greek and Roman culture in a number of fields, such as agriculture, architecture, the art of love, astronomy, ethics, mechanics, medicine, pharmacology. The main focus is on the textuality of processes of the transmission of knowledge and its application in various fields. Given that a text always contains complex and destabilising aspects that cannot be reduced to the specific subject matter it discusses, to what extent can and do ancient texts support extra-textual applicability?
Download or read book Scale Space and Canon in Ancient Literary Culture written by Reviel Netz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 905 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of ancient literary culture told through the quantitative facts of canon, geography, and scale.
Download or read book Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece written by Rosalind Thomas and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-09-25 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the role of written and oral communication in Greece.
Download or read book Literacy and Power in the Ancient World written by Alan K. Bowman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-12-05 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection attempts to set the study of literacy in the ancient world in the wider contexts of the debates among anthropologists over the impact of writing on society.
Download or read book Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire written by William A. Johnson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-03 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire, William Johnson examines the system and culture of reading among the elite in second-century Rome. The investigation proceeds in case-study fashion using the principal surviving witnesses, beginning with the communities of Pliny and Tacitus (with a look at Pliny's teacher, Quintilian) from the time of the emperor Trajan. Johnson then moves on to explore elite reading during the era of the Antonines, including the medical community around Galen, the philological community around Gellius and Fronto (with a look at the curious reading habits of Fronto's pupil Marcus Aurelius), and the intellectual communities lampooned by the satirist Lucian. Along the way, evidence from the papyri is deployed to help to understand better and more concretely both the mechanics of reading, and the social interactions that surrounded the ancient book. The result is a rich cultural history of individual reading communities that differentiate themselves in interesting ways even while in aggregate showing a coherent reading culture with fascinating similarities and contrasts to the reading culture of today.
Download or read book Empire of Letters written by S. A. Frampton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shedding new light on the history of the book in antiquity, Empire of Letters tells the story of writing at Rome at the pivotal moment of transition from Republic to Empire (c. 55 BCE-15 CE). By uniting close readings of the period's major authors with detailed analysis of material texts, it argues that the physical embodiments of writing were essential to the worldviews and self-fashioning of authors whose works took shape in them. Whether in wooden tablets, papyrus bookrolls, monumental writing in stone and bronze, or through the alphabet itself, Roman authors both idealized and competed with writing's textual forms. The academic study of the history of the book has arisen largely out of the textual abundance of the age of print, focusing on the Renaissance and after. But fewer than fifty fragments of classical Roman bookrolls survive, and even fewer lines of poetry. Understanding the history of the ancient Roman book requires us to think differently about this evidence, placing it into the context of other kinds of textual forms that survive in greater numbers, from the fragments of Greek papyri preserved in the garbage heaps of Egypt to the Latin graffiti still visible on the walls of the cities destroyed by Vesuvius. By attending carefully to this kind of material in conjunction with the rich literary testimony of the period, Empire of Letters exposes the importance of textuality itself to Roman authors, and puts the written word back at the center of Roman literature.
