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The altars of Republican Rome and Latium : sacrifice and the materiality of Roman religion

In this book, Claudia Moser offers a new understanding of Roman religion in the Republican era through an exploration of sacrifice, its principal ritual. Examining the long-term imprint of sacrificial practices on the material world, she focuses on monumental altars as the site for the act of sacrifice. Piecing together the fragments of the complex kaleidoscope of Roman religious practices, she shows how they fit together in ways that shed new light on the characteristic diversity of Roman religion. This study reorients the study of sacrificial practice in three principal ways: first, by establishing the primacy of sacred architecture, rather than individual action, in determining religious authority; second, by viewing religious activities as haptic, structured experiences in the material world rather than as expressions of doctrinal, belief-based mentalities; and third, by considering Roman sacrifice as a local, site-specific ritual rather than as a single, monolithic practice.

Ritual matters : material remains and ancient religion

Ritual Matters interrupts the anachronistic binaries of religious practice and belief, the material and the theological, by taking a new approach to the study of archaeological remains of ancient religions. Focusing on the materiality of ritual-inherent in everything from monumental temples and altars, to votive offerings and codices, to sanctioned inscriptions and reliefs-allows for a novel vantage point from which to consider ancient religious practices, as well as an important counterbalance to more traditional conceptual perspectives often privileged in the field. Material remains of religious practices may reveal striking local continuity, but they also highlight points of change, as distinct moments of manufacture and use transformed both sites and objects. Yet not every religious practice leaves a trace: the embodied use of imperial statuary, the rationale for the design of particular sacred books or the ephemeral "magical" implements designed by local religious experts leave few traces, if any, and are therefore less amenable to material investigation. What does remain, however, challenges any neat association between representation and reality or literary claim and practical application. This volume, which features work by internationally renowned scholars of ancient religions and archaeology, represents a significant contribution to the material approach of studying the ancient Mediterranean's diverse religious practices.Ritual Matters interrupts the anachronistic binaries of religious practice and belief, the material and the theological, by taking a new approach to the study of archaeological remains of ancient religions. Focusing on the materiality of ritual-inherent in everything from monumental temples and altars, to votive offerings and codices, to sanctioned inscriptions and reliefs-allows for a novel vantage point from which to consider ancient religious practices, as well as an important counterbalance to more traditional conceptual perspectives often privileged in the field.Material remains of religious practices may reveal striking local continuity, but they also highlight points of change, as distinct moments of manufacture and use transformed both sites and objects. Yet not every religious practice leaves a trace: the embodied use of imperial statuary, the rationale for the design of particular sacred books or the ephemeral "magical" implements designed by local religious experts leave few traces, if any, and are therefore less amenable to material investigation. What does remain, however, challenges any neat association between representation and reality or literary claim and practical application.This volume, which features work by internationally renowned scholars of ancient religions and archaeology, represents a significant contribution to the material approach of studying the ancient Mediterranean's diverse religious practices. In addition to volume editors Claudia Moser and Jennifer Knust, contributors include Henri Duday, Gunnel Ekroth, David Frankfurter, Richard Gordon, Valerie Huet, William Van Andringa, and Zsuzsanna Varhelyi. The range of topics covered includes funerary remains, sacrificial practices, "magic, " Roman altars, imperial reliefs and statuary, and the role of sacred books. Ritual Matters will be of interest to scholars of archaeology, art history, classical studies, religious studies, and ancient history.

Online University of Michigan Press

Über Bücher reden : Literaturrezeption in Lesegemeinschaften

Der vorliegende Band ist die erste umfassende wissenschaftliche Publikation im deutschen Sprachraum, die auf Basis empirischer Daten aktuelle Formen sozialen Lesens untersucht. Die dreizehn Beiträge befassen sich u.a. mit selbst organisierten privaten Lesekreisen und Internetforen, Buchauswahlprozessen, wissens- und vergnügungstheoretischen Aspekten des Redens über Bücher und den Unterschieden zwischen analogen und digitalen Lesegemeinschaften (Social Reading). Im Fokus stehen die Aushandlungsprozesse in der Konstruktion und Ko-Konstruktion von (literarischen) Bedeutungen durch Freizeit- bzw. Normalleser*innen. Die Ergebnisse eines Forschungsprojekts zu Lesegemeinschaften an der Universität Klagenfurt werden um internationale Perspektiven und literaturkritische Bezüge ergänzt. This book is the first comprehensive academic publication on social reading within german speaking countries. It contains a collection of thirteen scholarly articles dealing with privately organized reading groups, online reading platforms, book selection processes, book talk in relation to theories of knowledge and pleasure, and forms of social reading in analog and digital communities. The overall focus is set on the ordinary reader negotiating, constructing and co-constructing (literary) meaning. Core contributions are based on findings of a research project conducted at Universität Klagenfurt, Austria. Articles on professional literary criticism and international perspectives from Canada, Spain and Australia extend the scope