Meals in the Greco-Roman World

Call For Papers: There are three topics: 1) We invite scholars working on meals in cross-cultural perspective, or in particular cultural settings (historical or contemporary) to reflect on how communal meals and related rituals function in comparison to those the Greco-Roman world. The work of the seminar has focused on meals as key to ancient social formation (Taussig, Hal and Smith, Dennis E. (Eds.). 2012, Taussig, Hal and Marks, Susan (Eds.). 2014). Scholars who are considering the way meals serve as a vehicle for beliefs and values, contribute to social formation, and relate to issues of power, are invited to propose papers considering some aspect of meal practice or ideology germane to their own research, with some degree of comparison (or consideration of method for how to begin comparison) with the banquets of Greco-Roman antiquity and to meals in ancient Jewish and Christian settings in particular. 2) We also invite scholars to propose papers on meals and violence. Those studying topics involving meals in the New Testament, Judaism, Hellenistic and Roman religions, as well as early Christianity and Rabbinics, are welcome to submit papers on violence. Violent meal settings, but also the representation of violence during the meals, are of interest. How is violence represented in the texts? Does violence alter the practice of the meal? Who is acting violently before, during or after the meal? 3) The joint session with the Ritual in the Biblical World section is an open call and deals with the meal as ritual negotiation in the New Testament. We invite scholars to elaborate their theoretical framework and their methods. How does ritual theory affect your exegesis of the New Testament? Which parts of the meal are best analyzed with the help of ritual theories? Members of both groups invite junior scholars to present new studies in that field and offer their responses as experts of ritual. See also our Statement opposing the Muslim Ban http://enipolatio.hypotheses.org/705

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