Studies in Greco-Roman Religions: Individuation and the Self

The historiography of ancient Mediterranean religion has often been bound with concepts such as the self, individuation, and privatization. These concepts have been used to explain developments in a broad range of areas, including Christian asceticism, Rabbinic Halakhah, literary authorship, the reconfiguration of rituals, and images of the afterlife. The very definition of this period has been tied to how it presented a "new care of the self" or an "interiorization" of religion. This seminar considers the opportunities and challenges these concepts pose by examining scholarship on the period and the evidence it seeks to explain.