Civic Rites

"Civic Rites clearly demonstrates the complete interdependence of religion and democracy in Athens, illustrating just how much the ancient Athenians' view of the relationship between these powerful forces differs from that in twenty-first century, Western democracies. Evans has provided a systematic, thorough, and lively treatment, liberating readers from modern expectations and offering a new window onto Athenian society."_Loren J. Samons, author of What's Wrong with Democracy? From Athenian Practice to American Worship "It is a double task the author has undertaken: to demonstrate the interdependence, nay, integration of politics and religion in the high days of 'democratic' Athens and to bring this special form of 'democracy' home to a contemporary non-specialist public. She brilliantly succeeds in both, presenting a clear and poignant narrative with graphic details. Civic Rites is a novel and fascinating course through a seemingly well-known field."_Walter Burkert, author of Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth "In equal measures intelligent, accessible, and well-informed, this book provides a contemporary introduction to classical Athenian religious practices and their manifold cultural significance. Evans interweaves overviews of political, economic, and social history with engaging descriptions of several major Attic rites. This book will interest specialists while providing students with an illuminating pathway into the familiar yet alien world of ancient Greek religion."_Deborah Boedeker, Brown University "With vivid, elegant writing and compelling imagination, Nancy Evans recreates the complex interaction of religion and politics in the ancient Athenian Democracy. Deftly interweaving chapters on cult and on political developments, she shows the general reader an Athens that is stranger to modern sensibilities than we often realize, and yet one from which we can learn many things about democratic life. A wonderful achievement."_Martha Nussbaum, author of The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy

Venice's reputation for political stability and a strong, balanced republican government holds a prominent place in European political theory. Edward Muir traces the origins and development of this reputation, paying particular attention to the sixteenth century, when civic ritual in Venice reached its peak. He shows how the ritualization of society and politics was an important reason for Venice's stability. Influenced in part by cultural anthropology, he establishes and applies to Venice a new methodology for the historical study of civic ritual.

This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of Islamic studies find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult and editorial commentary to make it clear how the cited sources are interrelated related. This ebook is a static version of an article from Oxford Bibliographies Online: Renaissance and Reformation, a dynamic, continuously updated, online resource designed to provide authoritative guidance through scholarship and other materials relevant to the study of European history and culture between the 14th and 17th centuries. Oxford Bibliographies Online covers most subject disciplines within the social science and humanities, for more information visit www.oxfordbibliographies.com.

Scholars of religion have long assumed that ritual and belief constitute the fundamental building blocks of religious traditions and that these two components of religion are interrelated and interdependent in significant ways. Generations of New Testament and Early Christian scholars have produced detailed analyses of the belief systems of nascent Christian communities, including their ideological and political dimensions, but have by and large ignored ritual as an important element of early Christian religion and as a factor contributing to the rise and the organization of the movement. In recent years, however, scholars of early Christianity have begun to use ritual as an analytical tool for describing and explaining Christian origins and the early history of the movement. Such a development has created a momentum toward producing a more comprehensive volume on the ritual world of Early Christianity employing advances made in the field of ritual studies. The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual gives a manifold account of the ritual world of early Christianity from the beginning of the movement up to the end of the fifth century. The volume introduces relevant theories and approaches; central topics of ritual life in the cultural world of early Christianity; and important Christian ritual themes and practices in emerging Christian groups and factions.

Rome was the largest city in the ancient world. As the capital of the Roman Empire, it was clearly an exceptional city in terms of size, diversity and complexity. While the Colosseum, imperial palaces and Pantheon are among its most famous features, this volume explores Rome primarily as a city in which many thousands of men and women were born, lived and died. The thirty-one chapters by leading historians, classicists and archaeologists discuss issues ranging from the monuments and the games to the food and water supply, from policing and riots to domestic housing, from death and disease to pagan cults and the impact of Christianity. Richly illustrated, the volume introduces groundbreaking new research against the background of current debates and is designed as a readable survey accessible in particular to undergraduates and non-specialists.

This is a study of the history and consequences of the revolutionary campaign to transform culture and ritual in northern Vietnam. Based on official documents and several years of field research, it provides a detailed account of the nature of revolutionary cultural reform in Vietnam.

Despite Rousseau's legacy to political thought, his contribution as a constitutional theorist is underexplored. Drawing on his constitutional designs for Corsica and Poland, this book argues that Rousseau's constitutionalism is defined chiefly by its socially directive character. His constitutional projects are not aimed, primarily, at coordinating and containing state power in the familiar liberal-democratic sense. Instead, they are aimed at fostering the social conditions in which a fuller sense of freedom – understood broadly as non-domination – can be realised across all social domains. And in turn, since Rousseau views domination as being deeply embedded in complex social practices, his constitutionalism is aimed at fostering a radical austerity – social, economic and cultural – as its foil. In locating Rousseau's constitutional projects within his social and political theory of servitude and domination, this book will challenge the predominant focus and orientation of contemporary republican theory. Leading republican thinkers have drawn on the historical republican canon to articulate a model of constitutionalism which is, on the whole, 'liberal' in focus and orientation. This book will argue that the more communitarian orientation of Rousseau's constitutionalism – that is, its socially-directive focus – stems from a sophisticated and compelling account of the sources of unfreedom in complex societies, sources which are ignored or downplayed by the neo-republican literature. Rousseau embraces a communitarian social politics as part of his constitutional project precisely because, pessimistically, he views domination as being deeply embedded in the social relations of the liberal order.

The first book to explore the religious dimensions of the family and the household in ancient Mediterranean and West Asian antiquity. Advances our understanding of household and familial religion, as opposed to state-sponsored or civic temple cults Reconstructs domestic and family religious practices in Egypt, Greece, Rome, Israel, Mesopotamia, Ugarit, Emar, and Philistia Explores many household rituals, such as providing for ancestral spirits, and petitioning of a household's patron deities or of spirits associated with the house itself Examines lifecycle rituals – from pregnancy and birth to maturity, old age, death, and beyond Looks at religious practices relating to the household both within the home itself and other spaces, such as at extramural tombs and local sanctuaries