IMC 2011: Sessions
Session 1508: Texts and Identities, V: Classical Rhetoric and Christian Communities
Thursday 14 July 2011, 09.00-10.30
Sponsor: | Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien |
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Organisers: | Gerda Heydemann, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien / Institut für Geschichte, Universität Wien Irene van Renswoude, Instituut voor Theologisch en Godsdienstwetenschappelijk Onderzoek, Universiteit Utrecht |
Moderator/Chair: | Mayke de Jong, Departement Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht |
Paper 1508-a | 'There was a time speech was my life': Silence and Self-Reflection in Christian Rhetoric (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Monasticism, Rhetoric |
Paper 1508-b | The Preacher in the City: The Urban Environment and the Virtual Space of Late Antique Homilies (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Rhetoric, Sermons and Preaching |
Paper 1508-c | Meditations in an Emergency: Rhetoric and Politics in Cassiodorus' Commentary to the Psalms (Language: English) Index terms: Biblical Studies, Political Thought, Rhetoric |
Abstract | This session will investigate the process of adaptation by which late antique Christian church leaders and preachers (between 400 and 600) appropriated the rich tradition of classical rhetoric and transformed it into a tradition of their own. The papers explore the field of tension between classical rhetoric as a public, oral art of persuasion and late antique Christian culture with its emphasis on private contemplation and meditation of Holy Scripture. How did the tools of classical rhetorical analysis benefit the Christian practice of exegesis? What role did rhetoric play within monastic communities where silence took precedence over speech? How did preachers redefine public space as part of the Christian civitas? The papers in this session will suggest that, contrary to what has often been said, the art of rhetoric did not lose its social and political function with the beginning of the Middle Ages, but was instrumental for the process of building Christian communities and essential for thinking about politics and the right administration of a Christian society. |