The Strangeness of Gods

Abstract

AbstractThis book contains analyses both of Athenian religion and of the history of classical studies. It emphasizes that disciplinary history is an integral part of research, especially in interdisciplinary fields such as religion. It also highlights the intellectual aspects of religious thought and practice, and attacks the stereotype of religion and ritual as traditional and unchanging. The supernatural — like ‘nature’ in modern science — attracts speculation and experiment. Particular attention is given to the construction of classical studies and its subdisciplines in the 19th century university; to the genesis of the dichotomy rational/irrational in Greece in the 6th-5th centuries BCE (magnified in importance by 19th-century classicists); to the religious reforms of Lycurgus in Athens in the late 4th century BCE; to cultic innovation in the Attic demes; to the 18th-century origins of the idea that fertility cult was the earliest form of religion; and to the history of the Anthesteria festival.