Fabrications of the Greek past : religion, tradition, and the making of modern identities / by Vaia Touna.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Touna, Vaia, author.

Series:

Supplements to Method & theory in the study of religion ; v. 9.

Supplements to method & theory in the study of religion, 2214-3270 ; volume 9

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Religion.

Historiography.

Greece--Religion--Historiography.

Greece.

Physical Description:

xix, 174 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2017]

Summary:

Taking seriously critiques of historiography produced in recent decades, Vaia Touna advocates for an alternative approach to the way the past is studied. From Euripides' tragedy 'Hippolytus', to the notion of voluntary associations in the Greco-Roman world, to the authenticity of traditional villages in Greece, 'Fabrications of the Greek Past' argues that meanings (and thus identities) do not transcend time and space, and neither do they hide deep in the core of material artifacts, awaiting to be discovered by the careful interpreter. Instead, this book demonstrates that meanings are always relative to their present-day context; they are historical products created by social actors through their ever-contemporary acts of identification.

Contents:

A complicated affair

Gloria Patri: the construction of the modern self

Matters of classification: the case of "mysteries"

Representations of the ruined past: making self and other

Traditioning acts of identification: the case of Greek "traditional" villages

The ever-present past.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Touna, Vaia, author. Fabrications of the Greek past

ISBN:

9789004348608

9004348603

OCLC:

982652162