Late Ancient Knowing: Explorations in Intellectual History

Description

In this collection of essays, scholars from a range of disciplines explore the activity of knowing in late antiquity by focusing on thirteen major concepts from the intellectual, social, political, and cultural history of the period. They ask two questions about each of these concepts: what did late ancient people know about them, and how was that knowledge expressed in people’s actions? Late Ancient Knowing integrates intellectual history, post-structuralist literary theory, and recent trends in cognitive science to examine the ways that historical thought-worlds both shaped individual lives and were in turn shaped by the actions of individuals. Each chapter treats its main concept as a problem both of knowledge and of practice or behavior. The result is a richly imagined description of how people of this time understood and navigated their world, from travel through the countryside and encounters with demons to philosophical medicine and the etiquette of imperial courts. Introduction 1 Catherine M. Chin and Moulie Vidas part one. finding order 1. Artifact 17 Mira Balberg 2. Animal 36 Beth Berkowitz 3. Language 58 Jeremy Schott 4. Medicine 80 Heidi Marx-Wolf 5. Cosmos 99 Catherine M. Chin 6. Angel 117 Ellen Muehlberger 7. God 134 Lewis Ayres part two. putting things in order 8. Emperor 155 Matthew Canepa 9. Ordo 175 Michael Kulikowski 10. Christianization 197 Edward Watts 11. Cleric 218 Kristina Sessa 12. Countryside 240 Cam Grey 13. Demon 259 Dayna S. Kalleres Afterword 285 Maud W. Gleason Acknowledgments 293 List of Contributors 295 Index 299