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Research Group: The Subject of Antiquity: Contours and Expressions of the Self in Ancient Mediterranean Culture | Israel Institute for Advanced Studies

Research Group: The Subject of Antiquity: Contours and Expressions of the Self in Ancient Mediterranean Culture

physics

[RG # 152]  The Subject of Antiquity: Contours and Expressions of the Self in Ancient Mediterranean Culture

Sept. 1, 2017 - July 1, 2018

Organizers:

Ishay Rosen-Zvi (Tel Aviv University) 
Maren Niehoff (The Hebrew University)

 

There is a growing scholarly consensus that new notions of the self emerged in Greco-Roman Antiquity, which prompted philosophers, artists, law-makers and biographers to conceive of human beings as individuated selves, situated in specific cultural and historical contexts. We wish to examine these emerging discourses of the self, their interaction and expressions in the material and textual culture of Greeks and Romans, Jews and Christians.

While such an intellectual project seems very much a scholarly desideratum, it is also a complex challenge, since its successful achievement is contingent upon bringing together scholars from disparate disciplines. The constraints imposed by existing academic frameworks are thus often an impediment to its realization. We believe that the Institute provides the most suitable venue for a joint venture to explore the potential of combining various areas of research in order to achieve new understandings of this phenomenon.

The proposed research group consists of leading experts and one young scholar in the fields of Greek philosophy, Roman law and literature, Early Christianity, Jewish Hellenism and rabbinics. Most of us are in the process of embarking on book projects in new areas, which require intensive collaboration with colleagues in adjacent fields. Working closely together for a period of a year will enable us to shed new light on areas and genres which have regularly been studied in isolation. We hope to highlight both shared understandings across religious boundaries as well as culturally distinct types of self-fashioning.

 

Members

fellow

Eve-Marie Becker

FELLOW
Aarhus University

Eve-Marie is a professor in the Department of Theology at Aarhus University. Her research interests are: Pauline studies, especially Philippians, investigation of Paul’s biography and personality; early Christian literary history.

fellow

David Lambert

FELLOW
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

men

Joshua Levinson

FELLOW
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Joshua is a professor in the Department of Hebrew Literature at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research interests are: narrative theory and hermeneutics; Rabbinic literature; and the rewritten Bible.

fellow

Maren Niehoff

FELLOW
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Maren is the Max Cooper Chair in Jewish Thought at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research interests are: encounters between Jews, pagans, and Christians in the Greco-Roman world, Philo of Alexandria, rabbinic exegesis in light of the Church Fathers.

fellow

Gretchen Reydams-Schils

FELLOW
University of Notre Dame

Gretchen is a professor in the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Her research interests are: Plato, the traditions of Platonism and Stoicism, also in Philo of Alexandria and the Early Christian tradition.

fellow

Ishay Rosen-Zvi

FELLOW
Tel Aviv University

Ishay is a professor in the Department of Hebrew Culture Studies at Tel Aviv University. His research interests are: Talmud, Midrash, and Ancient Hermeneutic.

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