Letters and Communities: Studies in the Socio-Political Dimensions of Ancient Epistolography, edited by Paola Ceccarelli, Lutz Doering, Thorsten Fögen, and Ingo Gildenhard, OUP, 2018
Description
The writing of letters often evokes associations of a single author and a single addressee, who share in the exchange of intimate thoughts across distances of space and time. This model underwrites such iconic notions as the letter representing an 'image of the soul of the author' or constituting 'one half of a dialogue'. However justified this conception of letter-writing may be in particular instances, it tends to marginalize a range of issues that were central to epistolary communication in the ancient world and have yet to receive sustained and systematic investigation. In particular, it overlooks the fact that letters frequently presuppose and were designed to reinforce communities or, indeed, to constitute them in the first place.
This volume explores the interrelation of letters and communities in the ancient world, examining how epistolary communication aided in the construction and cultivation of group-identities and communities, whether social, political, religious, ethnic, or philosophical. A theoretically informed Introduction establishes the interface of epistolary discourse and group formation as a vital but hitherto neglected area of research; and is followed by thirteen case studies offering multi-disciplinary perspectives from four key cultural configurations: Greece, Rome, Judaism, and Christianity. The first part opens the volume with two chapters on the theory and practice of epistolary communication that focus on ancient epistolary theory and the unavoidable presence of a letter-carrier who introduces a communal aspect into any correspondence, while the second comprises five chapters that explore configurations of power and epistolary communication in the Greek and Roman worlds, from the archaic period to the end of the Hellenistic age. Five chapters on letters and communities in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity follow in the third part before the volume concludes with an envoi examining the trans-historical, or indeed timeless, philosophical community Seneca the Younger construes in his Letters to Lucilius.
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Table of Contents
Description
The writing of letters often evokes associations of a single author and a single addressee, who share in the exchange of intimate thoughts across distances of space and time. This model underwrites such iconic notions as the letter representing an 'image of the soul of the author' or constituting 'one half of a dialogue'. However justified this conception of letter-writing may be in particular instances, it tends to marginalize a range of issues that were central to epistolary communication in the ancient world and have yet to receive sustained and systematic investigation. In particular, it overlooks the fact that letters frequently presuppose and were designed to reinforce communities or, indeed, to constitute them in the first place.
This volume explores the interrelation of letters and communities in the ancient world, examining how epistolary communication aided in the construction and cultivation of group-identities and communities, whether social, political, religious, ethnic, or philosophical. A theoretically informed Introduction establishes the interface of epistolary discourse and group formation as a vital but hitherto neglected area of research; and is followed by thirteen case studies offering multi-disciplinary perspectives from four key cultural configurations: Greece, Rome, Judaism, and Christianity. The first part opens the volume with two chapters on the theory and practice of epistolary communication that focus on ancient epistolary theory and the unavoidable presence of a letter-carrier who introduces a communal aspect into any correspondence, while the second comprises five chapters that explore configurations of power and epistolary communication in the Greek and Roman worlds, from the archaic period to the end of the Hellenistic age. Five chapters on letters and communities in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity follow in the third part before the volume concludes with an envoi examining the trans-historical, or indeed timeless, philosophical community Seneca the Younger construes in his Letters to Lucilius.
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Table of Contents
- Frontmatter
List of Contributors
Introduction, Paola Ceccarelli, Lutz Doering, Thorsten Fögen, and Ingo Gildenhard
- Theory and Practice of Epistolary Communication
1. Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles, Thorsten Fögen
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2. Couriers and Conventions in Cicero's Epistolary Network, Bianca-Jeanette Schröder
. - Configurations of Power and Epistolary Communication: From Greece to Rome
3. Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy, Sian Lewis
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4. Powers in Dialogue: The Letters and diagrammata of Macedonian Kings to Local Communities, Manuela Mari
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5. Letters and Decrees: Diplomatic Protocols in the Hellenistic Period, Paola Ceccarelli
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6. Letters, Diplomacy, and the Roman Conquest of Greece, Robin Osborne
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7. A Republic in Letters: Epistolary Communities in Cicero s Correspondence, 49-43 BCE, Ingo Gildenhard
. - Letters and Communities in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
8. The Literary and Ideological Character of the Letters in Ezra 4-7, Sebastian Grätz
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9. 'From me, Jerusalem, the Holy City, to you Alexandria in Egypt, my Sister ....' (Bavli Sanhedrin 107b): The Role of Letters in Power Relations between 'Centre' and 'Periphery' in Judaism in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Early Islamic Periods, Philip Alexander
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10. Configuring Addressee Communities in Ancient Jewish Letters: The Case of the Epistle of Baruch (2 Baruch 78-86), Lutz Doering
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11. The Letters of Paul and the Construction of Early Christian Networks, John M. G. Barclay
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12. The Communities Configured in the Letter of James, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr
. - Envoi
13. Conversing with the Absent, Corresponding with the Dead: Friendship and Philosophical Community in Seneca's Letters, Catharine Edwards
Endmatter
General Index
Index locorum
Index of Authors
Statistics: Posted by MrMacSon — Wed Jan 01, 2025 12:47 pm