"This volume explores late ancient and Byzantine media from an ecological view point and with a special focus on non-human agencies. From the ancient treatises on dreams to monastic tales, from the Hexameron literature to the Byzantine romance, from the Exeter Book to a mysterious Byzantine icon, the book investigates a diverse range of media to uncover the intricacies of relationships in the natural world. It illustrates how these media are not only repositories of cultural and intellectual history but also valuable chests of ecological awareness, by overcoming the binary antinomy of culture and nature, human and non-human"-- Provided by publisher.
This book investigates how Late Antique and Byzantine literary texts and other media reflect the entangled, non-binary relation between human and non-human realms, culture and nature, providing unexplored historical insights into ancient ecological perceptions.
How can we study the late ancient and Byzantine history from ecological perspectives? How might one grapple with the more-than-human in sources and media created by humans? Exploring the diverse ways in which pre-modern texts engaged with the broader natural world, this book presents scholarly ventures into the terrains of the past. From the ancient treatises on dreams to monastic tales from the Hexameron literature to the Byzantine romance, from the Exeter Book to a mysterious Byzantine icon, the chapters investigate a diverse range of literature and other sources, uncovering intricate ecosystems of relationships.
The team of leading international experts behind the volume focuses on encounters between human and more-than-human beings. They pay attention to the entanglement of multiple agencies that cut through texts and other meshes. With insights from such theoretical traditions as ecocriticism, new materialism and environmental humanities, they re-expose ancient media to the elements.
Recenzijas
More than just a study of Byzantine environmental ideology and history, these scholarly meditations are also a reckoning with the Anthropocene, our own era of global warming and mass extinction, offering glimpses into other ways of being in the world from which we could perhaps learn. -- Adam J. Goldwyn, Professor of English, North Dakota State University, USA
Papildus informācija
This book investigates how Late Antique and Byzantine literary texts and other media reflect the entangled, non-binary relation between human and non-human realms, culture and nature, providing unexplored historical insights into ancient ecological perceptions.
1. Weathering: Ancient Worlds Exposed, Thomas Arentzen (St Ignatios
College, Sweden) & Laura Borghetti (Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz,
Germany)
2. Fieldwork: Following Saint Hilarion, Virginia Burrus (Syracuse University,
USA)
3. Night: An Ancient Monastic Ecology of Darkness, Douglas E. Christie
(Loyola Marymount University, USA)
4. Edges: Coasts, Riverbanks, and Waterscapes in Late Ancient Texts, Marco
Formisano (Ghent University, Belgium)
5. Dream: The Cultural Ecology of Dreaming in Artemidorus Oneirocritica,
Christopher Schliephake (University of Augsburg, Germany)
6. Energies: Wind, Water and the Literary Ecosystem in a Twelfth-Century
Byzantine Novel, Laura Borghetti (University of Mainz, Germany)
7. Behold!: The Equivocal Ecopoetics of Wonder in Late Ancient Homilies on
Creation, Kate Rigby (University of Cologne, Germany)
8. Agency: A Core Concept in the Cultural History of Human-Animal Relations,
Tristan Schmidt (University of Katowice, Poland)
9. Crocodiles: Frightening Reptiles and Monastic Imagination, Ingvild Sęlid
Gilhus (University of Bergen, Norway)
10. Physiologizing: The Meaning of Species Un/Ravelled, Thomas Arentzen
(Uppsala University, Sweden)
11. Feast!: Venantius Fortunatus Poetic Feasts, Leila Williamson (Ghent
University, Belgium)
12. Thicket: Trees and Belief in Britain after Rome, Michael D. J. Bintley
(University of Southampton, UK)
13. Medianature: Dirt, Stone, Water, and Sky as Representational Fields,
Glenn Peers (Syracuse University, USA)
Notes
References
Index
Laura Borghetti is a Doctoral Candidate in Byzantine Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany.
Thomas Arentzen is a Reader in Church History at Lund University, Sweden, and Associate Professor at Sankt Ignatios College, Stockholm School of Theology, Sweden.
