Ethnography After Antiquity

Ethnography After Antiquity PDF Author: Anthony Kaldellis
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812208404
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Although Greek and Roman authors wrote ethnographic texts describing foreign cultures, ethnography seems to disappear from Byzantine literature after the seventh century C.E.—a perplexing exception for a culture so strongly self-identified with the Roman empire. Yet the Byzantines, geographically located at the heart of the upheavals that led from the ancient to the modern world, had abundant and sophisticated knowledge of the cultures with which they struggled and bargained. Ethnography After Antiquity examines both the instances and omissions of Byzantine ethnography, exploring the political and religious motivations for writing (or not writing) about other peoples. Through the ethnographies embedded in classical histories, military manuals, Constantine VII's De administrando imperio, and religious literature, Anthony Kaldellis shows Byzantine authors using accounts of foreign cultures as vehicles to critique their own state or to demonstrate Romano-Christian superiority over Islam. He comes to the startling conclusion that the Byzantines did not view cultural differences through a purely theological prism: their Roman identity, rather than their orthodoxy, was the vital distinction from cultures they considered heretic and barbarian. Filling in the previously unexplained gap between antiquity and the resurgence of ethnography in the late Byzantine period, Ethnography After Antiquity offers new perspective on how Byzantium positioned itself with and against the dramatically shifting world.

Ethnography After Antiquity

Ethnography After Antiquity PDF Author: Anthony Kaldellis
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812208404
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Although Greek and Roman authors wrote ethnographic texts describing foreign cultures, ethnography seems to disappear from Byzantine literature after the seventh century C.E.—a perplexing exception for a culture so strongly self-identified with the Roman empire. Yet the Byzantines, geographically located at the heart of the upheavals that led from the ancient to the modern world, had abundant and sophisticated knowledge of the cultures with which they struggled and bargained. Ethnography After Antiquity examines both the instances and omissions of Byzantine ethnography, exploring the political and religious motivations for writing (or not writing) about other peoples. Through the ethnographies embedded in classical histories, military manuals, Constantine VII's De administrando imperio, and religious literature, Anthony Kaldellis shows Byzantine authors using accounts of foreign cultures as vehicles to critique their own state or to demonstrate Romano-Christian superiority over Islam. He comes to the startling conclusion that the Byzantines did not view cultural differences through a purely theological prism: their Roman identity, rather than their orthodoxy, was the vital distinction from cultures they considered heretic and barbarian. Filling in the previously unexplained gap between antiquity and the resurgence of ethnography in the late Byzantine period, Ethnography After Antiquity offers new perspective on how Byzantium positioned itself with and against the dramatically shifting world.

Classifying Christians

Classifying Christians PDF Author: Todd S. Berzon
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520959884
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Classifying Christians investigates late antique Christian heresiologies as ethnographies that catalogued and detailed the origins, rituals, doctrines, and customs of the heretics in explicitly polemical and theological terms. Oscillating between ancient ethnographic evidence and contemporary ethnographic writing, Todd S. Berzon argues that late antique heresiology shares an underlying logic with classical ethnography in the ancient Mediterranean world. By providing an account of heresiological writing from the second to fifth century, Classifying Christians embeds heresiology within the historical development of imperial forms of knowledge that have shaped western culture from antiquity to the present.

Geography and Ethnography

Geography and Ethnography PDF Author: Kurt A. Raaflaub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 111858984X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
This fascinating volume brings together leading specialists, who have analyzed the thoughts and records documenting the worldviews of a wide range of pre-modern societies. Presents evidence from across the ages; from antiquity through to the Age of Discovery Provides cross-cultural comparison of ancient societies around the globe, from the Chinese to the Incas and Aztecs, from the Greeks and Romans to the peoples of ancient India Explores newly discovered medieval Islamic materials

Contours of White Ethnicity

Contours of White Ethnicity PDF Author: Yiorgos Anagnostou
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0821443615
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
In Contours of White Ethnicity, Yiorgos Anagnostou explores the construction of ethnic history and reveals how and why white ethnics selectively retain, rework, or reject their pasts. Challenging the tendency to portray Americans of European background as a uniform cultural category, the author demonstrates how a generalized view of American white ethnics misses the specific identity issues of particular groups as well as their internal differences. Interdisciplinary in scope, Contours of White Ethnicity uses the example of Greek America to illustrate how the immigrant past can be used to combat racism and be used to bring about solidarity between white ethnics and racial minorities. Illuminating the importance of the past in the construction of ethnic identities today, Anagnostou presents the politics of evoking the past to create community, affirm identity, and nourish reconnection with ancestral roots, then identifies the struggles to neutralize oppressive pasts. Although it draws from the scholarship on a specific ethnic group, Contours of White Ethnicity exhibits a sophisticated, interdisciplinary methodology, which makes it of particular interest to scholars researching ethnicity and race in the United States and for those charting the directions of future research for white ethnicities.

Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity

Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity PDF Author: Jonathan M. Hall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521789998
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
In this book Jonathan Hall seeks to demonstrate that the ethnic groups of ancient Greece, like many ethnic groups throughout the world today, were not ultimately racial, linguistic, religious or cultural groups, but social groups whose 'origins' in extraneous territories were just as often imagined as they were real. Adopting an explicitly anthropological point of view, he examines the evidence of literature, archaeology and linguistics to elucidate the nature of ethnic identity in ancient Greece. Rather than treating Greek ethnic groups as 'natural' or 'essential' - let alone 'racial' - entities, he emphasises the active, constructive and dynamic role of ethnography, genealogy, material culture and language in shaping ethnic consciousness. An introductory chapter outlines the history of the study of ethnicity in Greek antiquity.

The Ethnography of Reading

The Ethnography of Reading PDF Author: Jonathan Boyarin
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520081338
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
"A very satisfying, diverse treatment of a topic that has been ignored because it has been hard to treat."—George E. Marcus, Rice University

Tales of the Barbarians

Tales of the Barbarians PDF Author: Greg Woolf
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444390805
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Tales of the Barbarians traces the creation of new mythologies in the wake of Roman expansion westward to the Atlantic, and offers the first application of modern ethnographic theory to ancient material. Investigates the connections between empire and knowledge at the turn of the millennia, and the creation of new histories in the Roman West Explores how ancient geography, local histories and the stories of wandering heroes were woven together by Greek scholars and local experts Offers a fresh perspective by examining passages from ancient writers in a new light

Encyclopaedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance

Encyclopaedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance PDF Author: Jason König
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107038235
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 619

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Book Description
Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction: Jason Konig and Greg Woolf; Part I. Classical Encyclopaedism: 2. Encyclopaedism in the Roman Empire Jason Konig and Greg Woolf; 3. Encyclopaedism in the Alexandrian Library Myrto Hatzimichali; 4. Labores pro bono publico: the burdensome mission of Pliny's Natural History Mary Beagon; 5. Encyclopaedias of virtue? Collections of sayings and stories about wise men in Greek Teresa Morgan; 6. Plutarch's corpus of Quaestiones in the tradition of imperial Greek encyclopaedism Katerina Oikonomopoulou; 7. Artemidorus' Oneirocritica as fragmentary encyclopaedia Daniel Harris-McCoy; 8. Encyclopaedias and autocracy: Justinian's Encyclopaedia of Roman law Jill Harries; 9. Late Latin encyclopaedism: towards a new paradigm of practical knowledge Marco Formisano; Part II. Medieval Encyclopaedism: 10. Byzantine encyclopaedism of the ninth and tenth centuries Paul Magdalino; 11. The imperial systematisation of the past in Constantinople: Constantine VII and his Historical Excerpts Andres Nemeth; 12. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam: Joseph Rhakendys' synopsis of Byzantine learning Erika Gielen; 13. Shifting horizons: the medieval compilation of knowledge as mirror of a changing world Elizabeth Keen; 14. Isidore's Etymologies: on words and things Andrew Merrills; 15. Loose Giblets: encyclopaedic sensibilities of ordinatio and compilatio in later medieval English literary culture and the sad case of Reginald Pecock Ian Johnson; 16. Why was the fourteenth century a century of Arabic encyclopaedism? Elias Muhanna; 17. Opening up a world of knowledge: Mamluk encyclopaedias and their readers Maaike van Berkel; Part III. Renaissance Encyclopaedism: 18. Revisiting Renaissance encyclopaedism Ann Blair; 19. Philosophy and the Renaissance encyclpaedia: some observations D.C. Andersson; 20. Reading 'Pliny's Ape' in the Renaissance: the Polyhistor of Cai++.

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Methodology

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Methodology PDF Author: Kerry E Howell
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1446271625
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
This book provides students with a concise introduction to the philosophy of methodology. The book stands apart from existing methodology texts by clarifying in a student-friendly and engaging way distinctions between philosophical positions, paradigms of inquiry, methodology and methods. Building an understanding of the relationships and distinctions between philosophical positions and paradigms is an essential part of the research process and integral to deploying the methodology and methods best suited for a research project, thesis or dissertation. Aided throughout by definition boxes, examples and exercises for students, the book covers topics such as: - Positivism and Post-positivism - Phenomenology - Critical Theory - Constructivism and Participatory Paradigms - Post-Modernism and Post-Structuralism - Ethnography - Grounded Theory - Hermeneutics - Foucault and Discourse This text is aimed at final-year undergraduates and post-graduate research students. For more experienced researchers developing mixed methodological approaches, it can provide a greater understanding of underlying issues relating to unfamiliar techniques.

Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity

Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity PDF Author: Ton Derks
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
ISBN: 9089640789
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
A bold and original examination of the relationships between ethnicity and political power in the ancient world.