The Letter Collection of Libanius of Antioch

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lieve Van Hoof
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
Original Order ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Literary Composition ◽  
Letter Collection

Libanius’s letter collection is the largest to survive from antiquity, and indeed it is one of the most important sources on the socio-cultural history of late antiquity. Nevertheless, it has been only partially translated and selectively studied; this chapter, by contrast, focuses on the collection as a whole. First, it analyzes the three most important manuscripts, which shows 300 roughly identical letters in varying order. Second, it examines the collection’s design and its effects on interpretation. Finally, it dives into the question of editorial origins: did Libanius or some posthumous admirer compile the collection? Thus this chapter will show that reading Libanius’ letters in their original order—not in the chronological order first proposed by Otto Seeck and adopted by most editors and translators—not only enriches our understanding of the individual letters, but also shows the value of the letter collection as a unified literary composition.

Late Antique Letter Collections

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
The Social ◽  
Letter Writer ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Letter Collection ◽  
Latin Letter

This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of the extant Greek and Latin letter collections of late antiquity (ca. 300-600 C.E.). Bringing together an international team of historians, classicists, and scholars of religion, it illustrates how letter collections advertised an image of the letter writer and introduces the social and textual histories of each collection. Nearly every chapter focuses on the letter collection of a different late ancient author—from the famous (or even infamous) to the obscure—and investigates its particular issues of content, arrangement, and publication context. On the whole, the volume reveals how late antique letter collections operated as a discrete literary genre with its own conventions, transmission processes, and self-presentational agendas while offering new approaches to interpret both larger letter collections and the individual letters contained within them. Each chapter contributes to a broad argument that scholars should read letter collections as they do representatives of other late antique literary genres, as single texts made up of individual components, with larger thematic and literary characteristics that are as important as those of their component parts.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ildar Garipzanov
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Sources Of Authority ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Periods

The concluding chapter highlights how the cultural history of graphic signs of authority in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages encapsulated the profound transformation of political culture in the Mediterranean and Europe from approximately the fourth to ninth centuries. It also reflects on the transcendent sources of authority in these historical periods, and the role of graphic signs in highlighting this connection. Finally, it warns that, despite the apparent dominant role of the sign of the cross and cruciform graphic devices in providing access to transcendent protection and support in ninth-century Western Europe, some people could still employ alternative graphic signs deriving from older occult traditions in their recourse to transcendent powers.

Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Machado
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Social ◽  
Traditional Elite ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

This book analyses the physical, social, and cultural history of Rome in late antiquity. Between AD 270 and 535, the former capital of the Roman empire experienced a series of dramatic transformations in its size, appearance, political standing, and identity, as emperors moved to other cities and the Christian church slowly became its dominating institution. Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome provides a new picture of these developments, focusing on the extraordinary role played by members of the traditional elite, the senatorial aristocracy, in the redefinition of the city, its institutions, and spaces. During this period, Roman senators and their families became increasingly involved in the management of the city and its population, in building works, and in the performance of secular and religious ceremonies and rituals. As this study shows, for approximately three hundred years the houses of the Roman elite competed with imperial palaces and churches in shaping the political map and the social life of the city. Making use of modern theories of urban space, the book considers a vast array of archaeological, literary, and epigraphic documents to show how the former centre of the Mediterranean world was progressively redefined and controlled by its own elite.

American Catholics and “The Use and Abuse of Reading,” 1865–1873

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-64
Author(s):  
Erin Bartram
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Social Order ◽  
American Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
American Catholicism ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Individual ◽  
American Catholic

ABSTRACTIn the wake of the Civil War, Father Isaac Hecker launched several publishing ventures to advance his dream of a Catholic America, but he and his partners soon found themselves embroiled in a debate with other American Catholics, notably his friend and fellow convert Orestes Brownson, over the “use and abuse of reading.” Although the debate was certainly part of a contemporary conversation about the compatibility of Catholicism and American culture, this essay argues that it was equally rooted in a moment of American anxiety over a shifting social order, a moment when antebellum faith in the individual was being tested by the rights claims of women and Americans of color. Tacitly accepting and internalizing historical claims of intrinsic and through-going Catholic “difference,” claims offered both by American Protestants and American Catholics like Brownson, scholars often presume that debates within American Catholicism reflect “Catholic” concerns first and foremost, qualifying their utility as sources of “American” cultural history. By examining American Catholic discussions of reading, individual liberty, social order, and gender in the 1860s and 1870s, this essay argues that Brownson's arguments against the compatibility of American and Catholic life were in fact far more representative of ascendant ideas in American culture than Hecker's hopeful visions of a Catholic American future made manifest through the power of reading. In doing so, it demonstrates the ways that American Catholicism can be a valuable and complex site for studying the broader history of religion and culture in the United States.

A history of the altruism–morality debate in biology

Behaviour ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 151 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 147-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oren Harman
Keyword(s):  
Levels Of Selection ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
The Core ◽  
Historical Figures ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Core Issues

Many different histories of the altruism–morality debate in biology are possible. Here, I offer one such history, based on the juxtaposition of four pairs of historical figures who have played a central role in the debate. Arranged in chronological order, the four dyads — Huxley and Kropotkin, Fisher and Emerson, Wynne-Edwards and Williams, and Hamilton and Price — help us grasp the core issues that have framed and defined the debate ever since Darwin: the natural origins of morality, the individual versus collective approach, the levels of selection debate, and the Is–Ought distinction. Looking forward, the continued relevance of the core issues is discussed.

NEW LIFE IN THE MODERN CULTURAL HISTORY OF DEATH

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 833-852
Author(s):  
HANNAH MALONE
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Critical Overview ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractThis essay presents a critical overview of recent literature in English on the modern cultural history of death. In order to locate new developments, it charts the evolution of the field from the 1970s until today and distinguishes between French and Anglophone strands in the historiography. A selection of studies published between 2005 and 2015 exemplifies a revival in recent scholarship that hangs on four main innovations: the abandonment of grand narratives of modernization and secularization; an interdisciplinary integration of political, cultural, and intellectual history; greater attention to the individual; and the expansion of the field beyond Europe and North America. Thus, today, the history of death is both local and global, public and private, personal and universal.

Józef Muczkowski: Dyrektor Biblioteki Jagiellońskiej, historyk

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Krawczyk
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Scientific Development ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
Political Field ◽  
Information Gap ◽  
History Of ◽  
Professional Field ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Types Of Information ◽  
The 19Th Century

The purpose of the presented thesis is to show a figure of one of the directors of the Jagiellonian Library in the 19th century, a professor at the Jagiellonian University and historian – Józef Muczkowski. In the thesis, the Professor’s personal life has been presented in chronological order, as well as his achievements in the professional field and his scientific accomplishments. The thesis consists of seven chapters, each dealing with issues related to the individual stages of the Professor’s life. Special attention has been focused on the process of intellectual and scientific development of Józef Muczkowski from his birth, through youth, to the period of holding office of the director of the Jagiellonian Library, and finally up to the last days of his life. Large part of the work is devoted to changes that were implemented by the Professor during the period when he was the Jagiellonian Library director. It concerns, among others, the organisation of library collections and complete reconstruction of the library building which is located within the Collegium Maius edifice. The thesis also introduces a broad spectrum of activities undertaken by the Professor in the political field. Presentation of profiles of his loved ones and relationships that connected him with his family and other people of science constitutes important part of the work because it connects all chapters. The thesis is based largely on unpublished sources, such as manuscripts, numerous fragments of official letters and the Professor’s correspondence. Analysis and interpretation of many types of information sources, followed by their elaboration and organisation, allow to fill the “information gap” regarding the person of Józef Muczkowski. As a result, by recreating Józef Muczkowski’s professional path, the thesis also supplements the information resource of history of the Jagiellonian Library in the first half of the 19th century.

The Letter Collection of Basil of Caesarea

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Radde-Gallwitz
Keyword(s):  
Recent Article ◽  
Original Form ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
History Of ◽  
Letter Collection

In a recent article, Roy Gibson has underscored the differences between ancient letter collections and their modern presentations. The latter, Gibson shows, tend to arrange letters in chronological order, subordinating the question of the collection’s original form and purpose to the interests of the modern biographer. The corpus of letters of Basil of Caesarea exemplifies Gibson’s theme well. When, in 1730, the Benedictine editors of St. Maur imposed order on the seeming incoherence of the arrangement in the manuscripts available to him, they did so by placing the letters in a putative chronological order. All subsequent editions and translations have followed suit, and thus the study of Basil’s letters has served a largely biographical purpose. This chapter disentangles, as much as possible, the original collection or collections of Basil’s letters from the modern reception of them. There is evidence for the circulation of small collections of Basil’s letters during his lifetime, collections arranged by addressee for purposes ranging from apologetic to polemical. This chapter examines the history of the collection’s formation, arrangement, and content.

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