Greco-Roman Religions

Call For Papers: The Section’s open session, “Thinking While Doing: To What Do Greco-Roman Religious Actors Assent?,” invites papers on belief in Greco-Roman religions dealing with questions such as: how we should study the beliefs of religious actors in cults with no formal doctrinal writing? What did these actors assume about the divine world and their interaction with it? How should we assess theoretical categories like “myth,” or “authoritiy” in the description of Greco-Roman religions? This session seeks papers that will serve as prolegomena to further study of this topic. The Section’s closed "Redescribing Greco-Roman Antiquity: Theorizing Cult Migrations in Late Antiquity” session will problematize categories to be used in a re-description of cult migration, focusing on explorative explanatory theorizing, using a variety of contemporary critical perspectives to explore religious production or practice. Our joint open session with the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions, “Civil Strife and the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean,” invites papers exploring the relationship between civil strife and the religions of the ancient Mediterranean. The 2011 four-year commemoration of the American Civil War reminds us that a full understanding of such conflicts requires attention to the central role of religious expression, to both side’s invocation of grand religious principles, and to the combatants’ personal displays of piety, inspiring a fresh look at the relationship between religion and civil strife in the ancient Mediterranean world. Potential examples range from the religious propaganda deployed by Darius of Persia to justify his kingship, to the competition and violence among the Sadducees and Pharisees, to the Roman general Sulla's reliance on omens and divination. This session seeks papers addressing this theme with reference to ancient texts, art, or material culture, or that consider modern appropriation of ancient world precedents.

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