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Divine Embodiment: Ritual, Art and the Senses in Late-antique Christianity

Heather Hunter-Crawley Orcid Logo

Swansea University Author: Heather Hunter-Crawley Orcid Logo

Abstract

"How does antique Christianity look if the lens of Cartesian dualism is removed and replaced with an embodied perspective? In responding to this question, this thesis proposes a new way of understanding ‘art’ and religion as integrally linked through ritual in Christian Late Antiquity. The inve...

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Published: 2013
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa24198
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first_indexed 2015-11-21T01:52:47Z
last_indexed 2018-02-09T05:03:42Z
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spelling 2017-03-09T16:25:17.4111940 v2 24198 2015-11-09 Divine Embodiment: Ritual, Art and the Senses in Late-antique Christianity c8e0c75e870837ac912e43332afbc724 0000-0002-7684-0781 Heather Hunter-Crawley Heather Hunter-Crawley true false 2015-11-09 ACLA "How does antique Christianity look if the lens of Cartesian dualism is removed and replaced with an embodied perspective? In responding to this question, this thesis proposes a new way of understanding ‘art’ and religion as integrally linked through ritual in Christian Late Antiquity. The investigation proceeds via ‘common-sensory archaeologies’ of material evidence. This is a methodology designed to enable interpretation of artefacts in ways not necessarily dependent on the imposition of literary interpretative methods, particularly semiotics. It enables new information to be elicited directly from materials. The argument addresses ‘magical’ practices and objects, and the ideas underpinning Roman religious practices, before analysing rituals specific to late-antique Christianity, including Holy-Land pilgrimage, saint cult, and the Eucharist. It differentiates rituals that were institutionalised, and those which evolved ‘organically’ among adherents, in order to highlight common underlying impulses. A picture emerges of the complex and subtle overlap between religions in Late Antiquity, which questions stark differentiations between ‘paganism’ and Christianity. This period’s ‘common sense’ (or, encultured mode of embodiment) is suggested to oscillate between two poles of cosmology – ‘cosmic uniformity’ and ‘infinite materiality’. Central to both perspectives was the need for (embodied) humans to engage ritually with the world through their senses in order to interact with the divine. By paying attention not just to what Christians thought but also to what they did, it is suggested that certain tensions in our understanding of late-antique culture may be resolved by retracting assumptions of stark Cartesian contrasts between belief/ritual, soul/body, text/material, and Christian/’pagan’. Furthermore, an embodied approach is shown to open avenues not just into elite culture, but also into the popular Christian perspective, by expanding our purview to the lived practice of, rather than just the theological debate surrounding, antique religion." Thesis 31 12 2013 2013-12-31 COLLEGE NANME Classics COLLEGE CODE ACLA Swansea University 2017-03-09T16:25:17.4111940 2015-11-09T11:44:59.4215084 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Culture and Communication - Classics, Ancient History, Egyptology Heather Hunter-Crawley 0000-0002-7684-0781 1
title Divine Embodiment: Ritual, Art and the Senses in Late-antique Christianity
spellingShingle Divine Embodiment: Ritual, Art and the Senses in Late-antique Christianity
Heather Hunter-Crawley
title_short Divine Embodiment: Ritual, Art and the Senses in Late-antique Christianity
title_full Divine Embodiment: Ritual, Art and the Senses in Late-antique Christianity
title_fullStr Divine Embodiment: Ritual, Art and the Senses in Late-antique Christianity
title_full_unstemmed Divine Embodiment: Ritual, Art and the Senses in Late-antique Christianity
title_sort Divine Embodiment: Ritual, Art and the Senses in Late-antique Christianity
author_id_str_mv c8e0c75e870837ac912e43332afbc724
author_id_fullname_str_mv c8e0c75e870837ac912e43332afbc724_***_Heather Hunter-Crawley
author Heather Hunter-Crawley
author2 Heather Hunter-Crawley
format Staff Thesis
publishDate 2013
institution Swansea University
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchytype
hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Culture and Communication - Classics, Ancient History, Egyptology{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Culture and Communication - Classics, Ancient History, Egyptology
document_store_str 0
active_str 0
description "How does antique Christianity look if the lens of Cartesian dualism is removed and replaced with an embodied perspective? In responding to this question, this thesis proposes a new way of understanding ‘art’ and religion as integrally linked through ritual in Christian Late Antiquity. The investigation proceeds via ‘common-sensory archaeologies’ of material evidence. This is a methodology designed to enable interpretation of artefacts in ways not necessarily dependent on the imposition of literary interpretative methods, particularly semiotics. It enables new information to be elicited directly from materials. The argument addresses ‘magical’ practices and objects, and the ideas underpinning Roman religious practices, before analysing rituals specific to late-antique Christianity, including Holy-Land pilgrimage, saint cult, and the Eucharist. It differentiates rituals that were institutionalised, and those which evolved ‘organically’ among adherents, in order to highlight common underlying impulses. A picture emerges of the complex and subtle overlap between religions in Late Antiquity, which questions stark differentiations between ‘paganism’ and Christianity. This period’s ‘common sense’ (or, encultured mode of embodiment) is suggested to oscillate between two poles of cosmology – ‘cosmic uniformity’ and ‘infinite materiality’. Central to both perspectives was the need for (embodied) humans to engage ritually with the world through their senses in order to interact with the divine. By paying attention not just to what Christians thought but also to what they did, it is suggested that certain tensions in our understanding of late-antique culture may be resolved by retracting assumptions of stark Cartesian contrasts between belief/ritual, soul/body, text/material, and Christian/’pagan’. Furthermore, an embodied approach is shown to open avenues not just into elite culture, but also into the popular Christian perspective, by expanding our purview to the lived practice of, rather than just the theological debate surrounding, antique religion."
published_date 2013-12-31T03:28:39Z
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score 11.012723

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