The Gift in Antiquity

The Gift in Antiquity

Author: Michael Satlow

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-02-22

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1118517903

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The Gift in Antiquity presents a collection of 14 original essays that apply French sociologist Marcel Mauss’s notion of gift-giving to the study of antiquity. Features a collection of original essays that cover such wide-ranging topics as vows in the Hebrew Bible; ancient Greek wedding gifts; Hellenistic civic practices; Latin literature; Roman and Jewish burial practices; and Jewish and Christian religious gifts Organizes essays around theoretical concerns rather than chronologically Generates unique insights into gift-giving and reciprocity in antiquity Takes an explicitly cross-cultural approach to the study of ancient history


Book Synopsis The Gift in Antiquity by : Michael Satlow

Download or read book The Gift in Antiquity written by Michael Satlow and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-02-22 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Gift in Antiquity presents a collection of 14 original essays that apply French sociologist Marcel Mauss’s notion of gift-giving to the study of antiquity. Features a collection of original essays that cover such wide-ranging topics as vows in the Hebrew Bible; ancient Greek wedding gifts; Hellenistic civic practices; Latin literature; Roman and Jewish burial practices; and Jewish and Christian religious gifts Organizes essays around theoretical concerns rather than chronologically Generates unique insights into gift-giving and reciprocity in antiquity Takes an explicitly cross-cultural approach to the study of ancient history


Dangerous Gifts

Dangerous Gifts

Author: Deborah Lyons

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2012-06-01

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 0292742762

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Deianeira sends her husband Herakles a poisoned robe. Eriphyle trades the life of her husband Amphiaraos for a golden necklace. Atreus’s wife Aerope gives away the token of his sovereignty, a lamb with a golden fleece, to his brother Thyestes, who has seduced her. Gifts and exchanges always involve a certain risk in any culture, but in the ancient Greek imagination, women and gifts appear to be a particularly deadly combination. This book explores the role of gender in exchange as represented in ancient Greek culture, including Homeric epic and tragedy, non-literary texts, and iconographic and historical evidence of various kinds. Using extensive insights from anthropological work on marriage, kinship, and exchange, as well as ethnographic parallels from other traditional societies, Deborah Lyons probes the gendered division of labor among both gods and mortals, the role of marriage (and its failure) in transforming women from objects to agents of exchange, the equivocal nature of women as exchange-partners, and the importance of the sister-brother bond in understanding the economic and social place of women in ancient Greece. Her findings not only enlarge our understanding of social attitudes and practices in Greek antiquity but also demonstrate the applicability of ethnographic techniques and anthropological theory to the study of ancient societies.


Book Synopsis Dangerous Gifts by : Deborah Lyons

Download or read book Dangerous Gifts written by Deborah Lyons and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2012-06-01 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deianeira sends her husband Herakles a poisoned robe. Eriphyle trades the life of her husband Amphiaraos for a golden necklace. Atreus’s wife Aerope gives away the token of his sovereignty, a lamb with a golden fleece, to his brother Thyestes, who has seduced her. Gifts and exchanges always involve a certain risk in any culture, but in the ancient Greek imagination, women and gifts appear to be a particularly deadly combination. This book explores the role of gender in exchange as represented in ancient Greek culture, including Homeric epic and tragedy, non-literary texts, and iconographic and historical evidence of various kinds. Using extensive insights from anthropological work on marriage, kinship, and exchange, as well as ethnographic parallels from other traditional societies, Deborah Lyons probes the gendered division of labor among both gods and mortals, the role of marriage (and its failure) in transforming women from objects to agents of exchange, the equivocal nature of women as exchange-partners, and the importance of the sister-brother bond in understanding the economic and social place of women in ancient Greece. Her findings not only enlarge our understanding of social attitudes and practices in Greek antiquity but also demonstrate the applicability of ethnographic techniques and anthropological theory to the study of ancient societies.


The Dangers of Gifts from Antiquity to the Digital Age

The Dangers of Gifts from Antiquity to the Digital Age

Author: Alexandra Urakova

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-09-09

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1000651614

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This is the first volume that examines dangerous gift-giving across centuries and disciplines. Bringing to the fore the subject that features as an aside in gift studies, it offers new insights into the ambivalent and troubled history of gift-giving. Dangerous, violent, and self-destructive gift-giving remains an alluring challenge for scholars almost a hundred years after Marcel Mauss’s landmark work on the gift. Globally, the notion of toxic and fateful gifts has haunted mythologies, folklores, and literatures for millennia. This book problematizes what stands behind the notion of the 'dangerous gift' and demonstrates how this operational term may help us to better understand the role and place of gift-giving from antiquity to the present through a series of case studies ranging from ancient Zoroastrianism to modern digital dating. The book develops a complex historical, cross-cultural, and multi-disciplinary approach to gift-giving that invites comparisons between various facets of this phenomenon through time and across societies. The book will interest a wide range of scholars working in anthropology, history, literary criticism, religious studies, and contemporary digital culture. It will primarily appeal to university educators and researchers of political culture, pre-modern religion, social relations, and the relationship between commerce and gifts.


Book Synopsis The Dangers of Gifts from Antiquity to the Digital Age by : Alexandra Urakova

Download or read book The Dangers of Gifts from Antiquity to the Digital Age written by Alexandra Urakova and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-09-09 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first volume that examines dangerous gift-giving across centuries and disciplines. Bringing to the fore the subject that features as an aside in gift studies, it offers new insights into the ambivalent and troubled history of gift-giving. Dangerous, violent, and self-destructive gift-giving remains an alluring challenge for scholars almost a hundred years after Marcel Mauss’s landmark work on the gift. Globally, the notion of toxic and fateful gifts has haunted mythologies, folklores, and literatures for millennia. This book problematizes what stands behind the notion of the 'dangerous gift' and demonstrates how this operational term may help us to better understand the role and place of gift-giving from antiquity to the present through a series of case studies ranging from ancient Zoroastrianism to modern digital dating. The book develops a complex historical, cross-cultural, and multi-disciplinary approach to gift-giving that invites comparisons between various facets of this phenomenon through time and across societies. The book will interest a wide range of scholars working in anthropology, history, literary criticism, religious studies, and contemporary digital culture. It will primarily appeal to university educators and researchers of political culture, pre-modern religion, social relations, and the relationship between commerce and gifts.


Readings in Late Antiquity

Readings in Late Antiquity

Author: Michael Maas

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-08-06

Total Pages: 530

ISBN-13: 1136617035

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Late Antiquity (ca. 250-650) witnessed the transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages in the Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds. Christianity displaced polytheism over a wide area, offering new definitions of identity and community. The Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe to be replaced by new "Germanic" kingdoms. In the East, Byzantium emerged, while the Persian Empire reached its apogee and collapsed. Arab armies carrying the banner of Islam reshaped the political map and brought the late antique era to a close. This sourcebook illustrates the dramatic political, social and religious transformations of Late Antiquity through the words of the men and women who experienced them. Drawing from Greek, Latin, Syriac, Hebrew, Coptic, Persian, Arabic and Armenian sources, the carefully chosen passages illuminate the lives of emperors, abbesses, aristocrats, slaves, children, barbarian chieftains, and saints . The Roman Empire is kept at the centre of the discussion, with chapters devoted to its government, cities, army, law, medicine, domestic life, philosophy, Christianity, polytheism, and Jews. Further chapters deal with the peoples who surrounded the Roman state: Persians, Huns, northern "Germanic" barbarians, and the followers of Islam. This revised and updated second edition provides an expanded view of Late Antiquity with a new chapter on domestic life, as well extra material throughout, including passages that appear for the first time in English translation. Readings in Late Antiquity is the only sourcebook that covers such a wide range of topics over the full breadth of the late antique period.


Book Synopsis Readings in Late Antiquity by : Michael Maas

Download or read book Readings in Late Antiquity written by Michael Maas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-08-06 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Late Antiquity (ca. 250-650) witnessed the transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages in the Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds. Christianity displaced polytheism over a wide area, offering new definitions of identity and community. The Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe to be replaced by new "Germanic" kingdoms. In the East, Byzantium emerged, while the Persian Empire reached its apogee and collapsed. Arab armies carrying the banner of Islam reshaped the political map and brought the late antique era to a close. This sourcebook illustrates the dramatic political, social and religious transformations of Late Antiquity through the words of the men and women who experienced them. Drawing from Greek, Latin, Syriac, Hebrew, Coptic, Persian, Arabic and Armenian sources, the carefully chosen passages illuminate the lives of emperors, abbesses, aristocrats, slaves, children, barbarian chieftains, and saints . The Roman Empire is kept at the centre of the discussion, with chapters devoted to its government, cities, army, law, medicine, domestic life, philosophy, Christianity, polytheism, and Jews. Further chapters deal with the peoples who surrounded the Roman state: Persians, Huns, northern "Germanic" barbarians, and the followers of Islam. This revised and updated second edition provides an expanded view of Late Antiquity with a new chapter on domestic life, as well extra material throughout, including passages that appear for the first time in English translation. Readings in Late Antiquity is the only sourcebook that covers such a wide range of topics over the full breadth of the late antique period.


Gift Giving and the 'embedded' Economy in the Ancient World

Gift Giving and the 'embedded' Economy in the Ancient World

Author: Filippo Carlà

Publisher: Universitatsverlag Winter

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783825363314

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The idea of a 'gift economy' has a long tradition in social, economic and cultural studies, since Marcel Mauss' seminal work. But in the latest years, anthropological, philosophical and economic research have underlined that nothing such as a 'gift economy' exists - at least if conceived as a phase preceding modern exchange - and that the 'phenomenon gift' must be understood not only in the different social and cultural contexts in which it is embedded, but also in its coexistence and connections to other forms of exchange, from commerce, to barter, to theft. This book analyzes from a multiplicity of perspectives, and focusing in particular the ancient world, the depth and complexity of such connections, the social norms and expectations connected to gift-giving, its economic aspects, as its role in the construction and consolidation of social hierarchies, dedicating attention not only to the praxis of exchange, but also to the role of the agents and of the exchanged object itself.


Book Synopsis Gift Giving and the 'embedded' Economy in the Ancient World by : Filippo Carlà

Download or read book Gift Giving and the 'embedded' Economy in the Ancient World written by Filippo Carlà and published by Universitatsverlag Winter. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of a 'gift economy' has a long tradition in social, economic and cultural studies, since Marcel Mauss' seminal work. But in the latest years, anthropological, philosophical and economic research have underlined that nothing such as a 'gift economy' exists - at least if conceived as a phase preceding modern exchange - and that the 'phenomenon gift' must be understood not only in the different social and cultural contexts in which it is embedded, but also in its coexistence and connections to other forms of exchange, from commerce, to barter, to theft. This book analyzes from a multiplicity of perspectives, and focusing in particular the ancient world, the depth and complexity of such connections, the social norms and expectations connected to gift-giving, its economic aspects, as its role in the construction and consolidation of social hierarchies, dedicating attention not only to the praxis of exchange, but also to the role of the agents and of the exchanged object itself.


The Gift

The Gift

Author: Marcel Mauss

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-09-10

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1136896848

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First published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.


Book Synopsis The Gift by : Marcel Mauss

Download or read book The Gift written by Marcel Mauss and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-09-10 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.


Money in Classical Antiquity

Money in Classical Antiquity

Author: Sitta von Reden

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010-11-18

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 0521453372

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A comprehensive analysis of the impact of money on the economy, society and culture of the Greek and Roman worlds.


Book Synopsis Money in Classical Antiquity by : Sitta von Reden

Download or read book Money in Classical Antiquity written by Sitta von Reden and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-11-18 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive analysis of the impact of money on the economy, society and culture of the Greek and Roman worlds.


Late Antiquity: A Very Short Introduction

Late Antiquity: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Gillian Clark

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-02-24

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 0199546207

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Sheds light on the concept of late antiquity and the events of its time, showing that this was in fact a period of great transformation


Book Synopsis Late Antiquity: A Very Short Introduction by : Gillian Clark

Download or read book Late Antiquity: A Very Short Introduction written by Gillian Clark and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-24 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sheds light on the concept of late antiquity and the events of its time, showing that this was in fact a period of great transformation


The Cultural Lives of Domestic Objects in Late Antiquity

The Cultural Lives of Domestic Objects in Late Antiquity

Author: Jo Stoner

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-03-19

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 9004391061

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In The Cultural Lives of Domestic Objects in Late Antiquity, Jo Stoner assesses evidence for heirlooms, gifts and souvenirs to reveal the personal and sentimental values of material culture from the late antique period.


Book Synopsis The Cultural Lives of Domestic Objects in Late Antiquity by : Jo Stoner

Download or read book The Cultural Lives of Domestic Objects in Late Antiquity written by Jo Stoner and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Cultural Lives of Domestic Objects in Late Antiquity, Jo Stoner assesses evidence for heirlooms, gifts and souvenirs to reveal the personal and sentimental values of material culture from the late antique period.


Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice

Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice

Author: Richard Valantasis

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2018-06-05

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 0691188165

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This is an unprecedented collection of nearly seventy Late Antique primary religious texts. These texts--all in new English translation and many appearing in English for the first time--represent every major religious current from the late first century until the rise of Islam. Produced through the efforts of thirty-six leading scholars in the field, they constitute a comprehensive view of religious practice in Late Antiquity. Religious life and performance during this period comprised diverse, often unusual practices. Philosophical ascent, magic, legal pronouncement, hymnography, dietary and sexual restriction, and rhetoric were all part of this deeply fascinating world. Religious and political identity often intertwined, as reflected in the Roman persecution of Christians. And a fluid boundary between religion and superstition was contested in daily life. Many practices, including ascetic training, crossed religious boundaries. Others, such as "incubation" at specific temples and certain divination rites, were distinctive practices of individual groups and orders. Intrinsically interesting, the practice of religion in the Late Antique also edifies modern-day religious life. As this volume shows, the origins of the contemporary Western religious terrain can be gleaned in this period. Rabbinic Judaism flourished and spread. Christianity developed still-important theological categories and structures. And even movements that did not survive intact--such as Neoplatonism and the once-powerful Manichaean churches--continue to influence religion today. This rich sourcebook includes discussions of asceticism, religious organization, ritual, martyrdom, religion's social implications, law, and theology. Its unique emphasis on practice and its inclusion of texts translated from lesser-known languages advance the study of religious history in several directions. A strong interdisciplinary orientation will reward scholars and students of religion, theology, gender studies, classical literatures, and history. Each text is accompanied by an introduction and a bibliography for further reading and research, making the book appropriate for use in any university or seminary classroom.


Book Synopsis Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice by : Richard Valantasis

Download or read book Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice written by Richard Valantasis and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an unprecedented collection of nearly seventy Late Antique primary religious texts. These texts--all in new English translation and many appearing in English for the first time--represent every major religious current from the late first century until the rise of Islam. Produced through the efforts of thirty-six leading scholars in the field, they constitute a comprehensive view of religious practice in Late Antiquity. Religious life and performance during this period comprised diverse, often unusual practices. Philosophical ascent, magic, legal pronouncement, hymnography, dietary and sexual restriction, and rhetoric were all part of this deeply fascinating world. Religious and political identity often intertwined, as reflected in the Roman persecution of Christians. And a fluid boundary between religion and superstition was contested in daily life. Many practices, including ascetic training, crossed religious boundaries. Others, such as "incubation" at specific temples and certain divination rites, were distinctive practices of individual groups and orders. Intrinsically interesting, the practice of religion in the Late Antique also edifies modern-day religious life. As this volume shows, the origins of the contemporary Western religious terrain can be gleaned in this period. Rabbinic Judaism flourished and spread. Christianity developed still-important theological categories and structures. And even movements that did not survive intact--such as Neoplatonism and the once-powerful Manichaean churches--continue to influence religion today. This rich sourcebook includes discussions of asceticism, religious organization, ritual, martyrdom, religion's social implications, law, and theology. Its unique emphasis on practice and its inclusion of texts translated from lesser-known languages advance the study of religious history in several directions. A strong interdisciplinary orientation will reward scholars and students of religion, theology, gender studies, classical literatures, and history. Each text is accompanied by an introduction and a bibliography for further reading and research, making the book appropriate for use in any university or seminary classroom.