Classics

Living Bodies, Dead Bodies, and the Cosmos

Culturally Specific and Universal Concepts
Edited by Chiara Ferella, Tanja Pommerening, Ulrike Steinert

[Lebendige Körper, tote Körper und der Kosmos. Kulturspezifische und universale Konzepte.]

2024. Approx. 480 pages.
forthcoming in August

Ancient Cultures of Sciences and Knowledge

approx. 115,00 €
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paper
ISBN 978-3-16-160085-2
forthcoming
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Published in English.
Which concepts about humans, their physical existence, and the world are universal, and which are culturally specific and historically diverse? This volume presents sixteen case studies from a range of disciplines, including psychology and history, which delve into concepts related to the living body, the dead body, and the cosmos found in the cultural traditions of different eras and world regions, from ancient times to the present.
This volume presents a collection of essays exploring transculturally and historically recurring conceptions of the human body and the natural world. Sixteen case studies from a range of disciplines, including psychology and history, delve into concepts related to the living body, the dead body, and the cosmos found in the cultural traditions of different eras and world regions, from ancient times to the present. The contributions highlight the mutual interrelations of human conceptions of the body and the cosmos; they explore the role of physically grounded experiences in shaping such concepts and investigate different factors contributing to the universality as well as the historical variability of these concepts.
Survey of contents
PART I: Theoretical Framework
 Chiara Ferella, Tanja Pommerening, and Ulrike Steinert 1. Introduction: The Embodied Mind of Premodern Cultures – Barbara Tversky 2. World in Mind, Mind in World: The View from Cognitive Science

PART II: Experiencing and Conceptualizing the Human Body
 Simone Gerhards 3. Some Remarks on the Conceptualization of the Sleeping Body in Ancient Egypt – Rune Nyord 4. Bodies of Stone and Wood in Ancient Egypt – Shahrzad Irannejad and Aleksandar Milenković 5. Of Organs, Functions, and Body Concepts: Localization in Empedocles and Nemesius – Yudit Kornberg Greenberg 6. Eroticizing the Body and Nature: A Comparative Reading of Hindu and Jewish Sacred Texts – Reuven Kiperwasser 7. The Order(s) of the Universe and the (Dis)Order(s) of the Body – Han Nijdam 8. Schemas of the Body and Body Metaphors in Medieval Frisian Law

PART III: Conceptualizing the Dead Body and Coping with Physical Death
 Rebekka Pabst and Oxana Polozhentseva 9. Dead Bodies: Conceptualizations of the Corpse from Ancient Egyptian and Medieval Perspectives – Fabian Neuwahl 10. »At Last Death Filled the Sanctuaries pf the Gods with Lifeless Bodies«: Dead Bodies in Roman Plague Descriptions – Adriana Gómez Aiza and Alondra Domínguez Ángeles 11. Self-Decapitation and Nahualism: Corporeal/Animistic Transposition in Mesoamerican Cosmovision – Annette Kehnel 12. The Powers of the Quasi-dead Body: A Footnote to Michael Tomasello's Concept of Shared Intentionality and the Benefits of Cooperation

PART IV: Conceptualizing and Interacting with the Cosmos and Its Phenomena
 Laura Borghetti, Marie-Charlotte von Lehsten, and Katharina Zartner 13. Night, Wind, and Sun: Personification of Celestial Phenomena in the Ancient Near East, Ancient Greece, and Byzantium – Tom Hercules Davies 14. The World in Flux: Thinking through Cosmography in Greece, India, and Egypt – Daniel W. Graham 15. The Development of Greek Cosmology – Feray Coşkun 16. Heavens, World, and Human Beings in the Ottoman Cosmographies
Vorschautext
Authors/Editors

Chiara Ferella Born 1982; 2011 PhD in Classics (Greek Studies) from the University of Pisa; Associate Researcher within the DFG funded Research Training Group »Early Concepts of Humans and Nature. Universal, Specific, Interchanged« at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.
https://orcid.org/0009-0002-7525-6660

Tanja Pommerening Born 1969; 2004 PhD in Egyptology from Philipps University of Marburg; 2010 Professor of Egyptology at Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz; Professor of History of Pharmacy and Medicine; Executive director of the Institute of the History of Pharmacy and Medicine at University of Marburg.
https://orcid.org/OR0000-0003-1584-564X

Ulrike Steinert Born 1976; 2007 PhD in Ancient Near Eastern Studies (Altorientalistik) from the University of Göttingen; Postdoctoral researcher at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and Principal investigator of the DFG-funded project »Akkadian and Hittite Emotions in Context« at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0025-4070

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