Download or read book The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies written by Philip Rousseau and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2005-04-28 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this provocative collection exemplify the innovations that have characterized the relatively new field of late ancient studies. Focused on civilizations clustered mainly around the Mediterranean and covering the period between roughly 100 and 700 CE, scholars in this field have brought history and cultural studies to bear on theology and religious studies. They have adopted the methods of the social sciences and humanities—particularly those of sociology, cultural anthropology, and literary criticism. By emphasizing cultural and social history and considerations of gender and sexuality, scholars of late antiquity have revealed the late ancient world as far more varied than had previously been imagined. The contributors investigate three key concerns of late ancient studies: gender, asceticism, and historiography. They consider Macrina’s scar, Mary’s voice, and the harlot’s body as well as Augustine, Jovinian, Gregory of Nazianzus, Julian, and Ephrem the Syrian. Whether examining how animal bodies figured as a means for understanding human passion and sexuality in the monastic communities of Egypt and Palestine or meditating on the almost modern epistemological crisis faced by Theodoret in attempting to overcome the barriers between the self and the wider world, these essays highlight emerging theoretical and critical developments in the field. Contributors. Daniel Boyarin, David Brakke, Virginia Burrus, Averil Cameron, Susanna Elm, James E. Goehring, Susan Ashbrook Harvey, David G. Hunter, Blake Leyerle, Dale B. Martin, Patricia Cox Miller, Philip Rousseau, Teresa M. Shaw, Maureen A. Tilley, Dennis E. Trout, Mark Vessey
Download or read book Women and Modesty in Late Antiquity written by Kate Wilkinson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-30 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a fresh approach to some of the most studied documents relating to Christian female asceticism in the Roman era. Focusing on the letters of advice to the women of the noble Anicia family, Kate Wilkinson argues that conventional descriptions of feminine modesty can reveal spaces of agency and self-formation in early Christian women's lives. She uses comparative data from contemporary ethnographic studies of Muslim, Hindu, and indigenous Pakistani women to draw out the possibilities inherent in codes of modesty. Her analysis also draws on performance studies for close readings of Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome and Pelagius. The book begins by locating itself within the complex terrain of feminist historiography, and then addresses three main modes of modest behavior - dress, domesticity and silence. Finally, it addresses the theme of false modesty and explores women's agency in light of Augustinian and Pelagian conceptions of choice.
Download or read book Conversion in Late Antiquity Christianity Islam and Beyond written by Arietta Papaconstantinou and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The papers in this volume were presented at a Mellon-Sawyer Seminar held at the University of Oxford in 2009-2010, which sought to investigate side by side the two important movements of conversion that frame late antiquity: to Christianity at its start, and to Islam at the other end. Challenging the opposition between the two stereotypes of Islamic conversion as an intrinsically violent process, and Christian conversion as a fundamentally spiritual one, the papers seek to isolate the behaviours and circumstances that made conversion both such a common and such a contested phenomenon. The spread of Buddhism in Asia in broadly the same period serves as an external comparator that was not caught in the net of the Abrahamic religions. The volume is organised around several themes, reflecting the concerns of the initial project with the articulation between norm and practice, the role of authorities and institutions, and the social and individual fluidity on the ground. Debates, discussions, and the expression of norms and principles about conversion conversion are not rare in societies experiencing religious change, and the first section of the book examines some of the main issues brought up by surviving sources. This is followed by three sections examining different aspects of how those principles were - or were not - put into practice: how conversion was handled by the state, how it was continuously redefined by individual ambivalence and cultural fluidity, and how it was enshrined through different forms of institutionalization. Finally, a topographical coda examines the effects of religious change on the iconic holy city of Jerusalem.
Download or read book Children and Asceticism in Late Antiquity written by Ville Vuolanto and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Late Antiquity the emergence of Christian asceticism challenged the traditional Greco-Roman views and practices of family life. The resulting discussions on the right way to live a good Christian life provide us with a variety of information on both ideological statements and living experiences of late Roman childhood. This is the first book to scrutinise the interplay between family, children and asceticism in the rise of Christianity. Drawing on texts of Christian authors of the late fourth and early fifth centuries the volume approaches the study of family dynamics and childhood from both ideological and social historical perspectives. It examines the place of children in the family in Christian ideology and explores how families in the late Roman world adapted these ideals in practice. Offering fresh viewpoints to current scholarship Ville Vuolanto demonstrates that there were many continuities in Roman ways of thinking about children and, despite the rise of Christianity, the old traditions remained deeply embedded in the culture. Moreover, the discussions about family and children are shown to have been intimately linked to worries about the continuity of family lineage and of the self, and to the changing understanding of what constituted a meaningful life.
Download or read book Orthodoxy and the Courts in Late Antiquity written by Caroline Humfress and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2007-11 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Approaching the subject of late Roman law from the perspective of legal practice revealed in courtroom processes, Caroline Humfress argues for a vibrant culture of forensic argumentation in late Antiquity - which included Christian controversies concerning 'heresy' and 'orthodoxy', revealing its far-reaching effects on theological debate.
Download or read book Jewish Christian and Classical Exegetical Traditions in Jerome s Translation of the Book of Exodus written by Matthew A. Kraus and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-04-03 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Jewish, Christian, and Classical Exegetical Traditions in Jerome’s Translation of the Book of Exodus: Translation Technique and the Vulgate, Matthew Kraus offers a layered understanding of Jerome’s translation of biblical narrative, poetry, and law from Hebrew to Latin. Usually seen as a tool for textual criticism, when read as a work of literature, the Vulgate reflects a Late Antique conception of Hebrew grammar, critical use of Greek biblical traditions, rabbinic influence, Christian interpretation, and Classical style and motifs. Instead of typically treating the text of the Vulgate and Jerome himself separately, Matthew Kraus uncovers Late Antiquity in the many facets of the translator at work—grammarian, biblical exegete, Septuagint scholar, Christian intellectual, rabbinic correspondent, and devotee of Classical literature.
Download or read book Theory History and the Study of Religion in Late Antiquity written by Maia Kotrosits and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-02-28 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theory is not a set of texts, it is a style of approach. It is to engage in the act of speculation: gestures of abstraction that re-imagine and dramatize the crises of living. This Element is a both a primer for understanding some of the more predominant strands of critical theory in the study of religion in late antiquity, and a history of speculative leaps in the field. It is a history of dilemmas that the field has tried to work out again and again - questions about subjectivity, the body, agency, violence, and power. This Element additionally presses us on the ethical stakes of our uses of theory, and asks how the field's interests in theory help us understand what's going on, half-spoken, in the disciplinary unconscious.
Download or read book The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity written by Averil Cameron and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-04-29 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides both a detailed introduction to the vivid and exciting period of `late antiquity' and a direct challenge to conventional views of the end of the Empire.
Download or read book A Companion to Women in the Ancient World written by Sharon L. James and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-02-13 with total page 661 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A COMPANION TO WOMEN IN THE ANCIENT WORLD A Companion to Women in the Ancient World is the first interdisciplinary, methodologically based collection of readings to address the study of women in the ancient world while weaving textual, visual, and archaeological evidence into its approach. Prominent scholars tackle the myriad problems inherent in the interpretation of the evidence, and consider the biases and interpretive categories inherited from centuries of scholarship. Essays and case studies cover an unprecedented breadth of chronological and geographical range, genres, and themes. Illuminating and insightful, A Companion to Women in the Ancient World both challenges preconceived notions and paves the way for new directions in research on women in antiquity.
Download or read book International Review of Biblical Studies written by BRILL ACADEMIC PUB and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007-02 with total page 567 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Formerly known by its subtitle "Internationale Zeitschriftenschau für Bibelwissenschaft und Grenzgebiete", the International Review of Biblical Studies has served the scholarly community ever since its inception in the early 1950's. Each annual volume includes approximately 2,000 abstracts and summaries of articles and books that deal with the Bible and related literature, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pseudepigrapha, Non-canonical gospels, and ancient Near Eastern writings. The abstracts - which may be in English, German, or French - are arranged thematically under headings such as e.g. "Genesis", "Matthew", "Greek language", "text and textual criticism", "exegetical methods and approaches", "biblical theology", "social and religious institutions", "biblical personalities", "history of Israel and early Judaism", and so on. The articles and books that are abstracted and reviewed are collected annually by an international team of collaborators from over 300 of the most important periodicals and book series in the fields covered.
Download or read book Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity written by Richard Flower and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-08-31 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity takes an interdisciplinary approach to the question of how individuals and groups ascribed religious categories during late antiquity. Particular focus is given to the role of rhetoric in the expression of religious identity, in order to give mutual illumination to both phenomena in this period.
Download or read book A Companion to Late Antiquity written by Philip Rousseau and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-02-20 with total page 738 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accessible and authoritative overview capturing the vitality and diversity of scholarship that exists on the transformative time period known as late antiquity. Provides an essential overview of current scholarship on late antiquity – from between the accession of Diocletian in AD 284 and the end of Roman rule in the Mediterranean Comprises 39 essays from some of the world's foremost scholars of the era Presents this once-neglected period as an age of powerful transformation that shaped the modern world Emphasizes the central importance of religion and its connection with economic, social, and political life Winner of the 2009 Single Volume Reference/Humanities & Social Sciences PROSE award granted by the Association of American Publishers
Download or read book Borderline Virginities written by Sissel Undheim and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-28 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How and why did virginity come to play such a crucial part in the Christian Church in the formative and defining period of Late Antiquity? Sissel Undheim analyzes the negotiations over what constituted virginity and assesses its socio-religious value in fourth-century Rome by looking at those at the very margins of virginity and non-virginity. The Church Fathers’ efforts to demarcate an exclusively Christian virginity, in contrast to the ‘false virgins’ of their pagan adversaries, displays a tension that, it is argued, played a larger role in the construction of a specifically Christian sacred virginity than previous studies have acknowledged. Late fourth-century Christian theologians’ persistent appraisals of sacred virgins paved the way for a wide variety of virgins that often challenged the stereotype of the unmarried female virgin. The sources abound with seemingly paradoxical virgins, such as widow virgins, married virgins, virgin mothers, infant virgins, old virgins, heretical virgins, pagan virgins, male virgins, false virgins and fallen virgins. Through examining these kinds of ‘borderline virgins’ as they appear in a range of textual sources from varied genres, Undheim demonstrates how physical, cultural and cognitive boundaries of virginity were contested, drawn and redrawn in the fourth and early fifth centuries in the Latin West.
Download or read book The Philosophical Life written by Arthur P. Urbano and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2013-10-12 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancient biographies were more than accounts of the deeds of past heroes and guides for moral living. They were also arenas for debating pressing philosophical questions and establishing intellectual credentials, as Arthur P. Urbano argues in this study of biographies composed in Late Antiquity
Download or read book Epiphanius of Cyprus written by Andrew S. Jacobs and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia on Cyprus from 367 to 403 C.E., was incredibly influential in the last decades of the fourth century. Whereas his major surviving text (the Panarion, an encyclopedia of heresies) is studied for lost sources, Epiphanius himself is often dismissed as an anti-intellectual eccentric, a marginal figure of late antiquity. In this book, Andrew Jacobs moves Epiphanius from the margin back toward the center and proposes we view major cultural themes of late antiquity in a new light altogether. Through an examination of the key cultural concepts of celebrity, conversion, discipline, scripture, and salvation, Jacobs shifts our understanding of "late antiquity" from a transformational period open to new ideas and peoples toward a Christian Empire that posited a troubling, but ever-present, "otherness" at the center of its cultural production.
Download or read book Knowledge Construction in Late Antiquity written by Monika Amsler and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-04-03 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social Studies of the sciences have long analyzed and exposed the constructed nature of knowledge. Pioneering studies of knowledge production in laboratories (e.g., Latour/Woolgar 1979; Knorr-Cetina 1981) have identified factors that affect processes that lead to the generation of scientific data and their subsequent interpretation, such as money, training and curriculum, location and infrastructure, biography-based knowledge and talent, and chance. More recent theories of knowledge construction have further identified different forms of knowledge, such as tacit, intuitive, explicit, personal, and social knowledge. These theoretical frameworks and critical terms can help reveal and clarify the processes that led to ancient data gathering, information and knowledge production. The contributors use late-antique hermeneutical associations as means to explore intuitive or even tacit knowledge; they appreciate mistakes as a platform to study the value of personal knowledge and its premises; they think about rows and tables, letter exchanges, and schools as platforms of distributed cognition; they consider walls as venues for social knowledge production; and rethink the value of social knowledge in scholarly genealogies--then and now.
Download or read book Education and Religion in Late Antique Christianity written by Peter Gemeinhardt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-31 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book studies the complex attitude of late ancient Christians towards classical education. In recent years, the different theoretical positions that can be found among the Church Fathers have received particular attention: their statements ranged from enthusiastic assimilation to outright rejection, the latter sometimes masking implicit adoption. Shifting attention away from such explicit statements, this volume focuses on a series of lesser-known texts in order to study the impact of specific literary and social contexts on late ancient educational views and practices. By moving attention from statements to strategies this volume wishes to enrich our understanding of the creative engagement with classical ideals of education. The multi-faceted approach adopted here illuminates the close connection between specific educational purposes on the one hand, and the possibilities and limitations offered by specific genres and contexts on the other. Instead of seeing attitudes towards education in late antique texts as applications of theoretical positions, it reads them as complex negotiations between authorial intent, the limitations of genre, and the context of performance.
