Sebastian Fink

Stephanie Anthonioz

The first of the Melammu Workshops askes how female and male representatives of the wise, female and male sages, were conceptualized in antiquity and whether there was a clear difference between female and male wisdom. The workshop followed a kind of historical chronology starting from Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources, continuing West through the Levant and ending with Greek and Roman documentation. It permitted a vast exploration of sages, both divine and human, as they were portrayed in antiquity. The papers brought to light several tensions among which the question of gender was not the least. Indeed, the nature of wisdom itself, human and divine, empirical, theoretical but also at times abstract and difficult to outline, pointed to the difficulty of a definition. Hence the plurality of representations might be interpreted as a sign of this difficulty and variety. Moreover, the gender question was found to be strongly related to the societies and their organization as evidenced elsewhere in current research. Any generalization or typology of the sages at this point could not be drawn but a clear historical evolution toward masculine representation of wisdom was evidenced. Certainly, this has to do with social change, economic structures and the loci of power and authority. However, in many regards, women appear as counterparts or homologues of men in their quest for wisdom. In that sense, the workshop proved very fruitful in displaying a large gallery of portraits and in bringing to light differences according to social settings and sources but also main trends of evolution through historical times.

A Gendered Approach: Proceedings of the 1st Melammu Workshop. Lille, 4-5 April 2016

Representing the Wise

Johanna Luggin

Battle descriptions are usually seen as the raw material of the military historian, who uses them to explain why generals won or lost a given battle. This volume does not aim to contribute to this discussion; it rather approaches battle descriptions as literary texts that interact with the expectations of a given audience. Therefore literary traditions in structure, vocabulary and topics of battle descriptions should be explored. The transgression of genre-borders – also literary and fictional texts are included – and a broad comparative approach, combining evidence from the third millennium BC up to the 20th century AD, makes cultural specifics and differences more easily perceivable. Contents With contributions by Marcos Such-Guttiérrez, Pavel Čech, Hilmar Klinkott, Wolfgang Oswald, Kai Ruffing, Oliver Stoll, Martin M. Bauer, Reinhold Bichler, Christian Mileta, Simon Lentzsch, Sven Günther, Dennis Pulina, Johanna Luggin, Sonjar Koroliov, Magdalena Gronau and Martin Gronau. The Editors Dr. Johanna Luggin is a post-doc researcher in the ERC-funded project “NOSCEMUS – Nova Scientia: Early Modern Science and Latin” in Innsbruck, Austria. Dr. Sebastian Fink is a postdoctoral researcher at the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence “Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions”.

A comparative approach

Battle Descriptions as Literary Texts

Raija Mattila

Sanae Ito

While Human-Animal Studies is a rapidly growing field in modern history, studies on this topic that focus on the Ancient World are few. The present volume aims at closing this gap. It investigates the relation between humans, animals, gods, and things with a special focus on the structure of these categories. An improved understanding of the ancient categories themselves is a precondition for any investigation into the relation between them. The focus of the volume lies on the Ancient Near East, but it also provides studies on Ancient Greece, Asia Minor, Mesoamerica, the Far East, and Arabia.

Animals and their Relation to Gods, Humans and Things in the Ancient World

Robert Rollinger

Oswald Spenglers Kulturmorphologie diente als Ausgangspunkt einer internationalen und interdisziplinär angelegten Tagung, deren Beiträge in diesem Band vorliegen. Sie behandeln eine Vielfalt an Themen, die von der Menschwerdung, über die Kulturen des Altertums bis hin zu aktuellen politischen und sozialen Fragestellungen reichen. Schließlich sind auch Studien zur Spenglerforschung im engeren Sinne vertreten.

Sebastian Fink

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