The Gift in Antiquity

1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4443-5024-1
Verlag: Wiley

Buch, Englisch, 272 Seiten, Format (B × H): 179 mm x 254 mm, Gewicht: 593 g

“The Gift in Antiquity is an exciting and learned dialogue with Marcel Mauss’s The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, published ninety years ago. The essays engage Mauss’s model, offering critique and nuance, and sometimes push Mauss’s insights far beyond what he had imagined. While many anthologies are useful for the one or two essays they contain, this volume offers a tightly organized collection useful as a reader in classics, religion, or anthropology courses.”

John S. Kloppenborg, University of Toronto

“The Gift in Antiquity offers a rousing demonstration of the lessons to be learned from Marcel Mauss’s early insight that gift-giving offers a privileged way to understand social relations and social obligations. The book brims with the excitement of scholars from different disciplines building on a common theoretical tool to offer new perspectives on topics in their own fields as well as on the foundational concept of the gift itself. It is a book that all scholars of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, as well as all scholars interested in the gift, will want to read.”

David I. Kertzer, Brown University

In his seminal essay The Gift (1922), French sociologist Marcel Mauss proposed an original theoretical framework for thinking about gift-giving practices. Emphasizing that all gifts were “total social facts” that created bonds of reciprocity between communities and individuals, Mauss’s framework has been fundamental in anthropological research. The Gift in Antiquity applies Mauss’s notion of gift-giving as a catalyst in strengthening group bonds to the study of antiquity. This thought-provoking collection of 14 original essays covers such wide-ranging topics as vows in the Hebrew Bible; ancient Greek wedding gifts; Hellenistic civic practices; Latin literature; Roman and Jewish burial practices; and Jewish and Christian religious gifts, along with wider theoretical and methodological reflections. Collectively, the essays open up a cross-cultural dialogue that generates new ways of thinking about both antiquity and theories of gift-giving and reciprocity. The Gift in Antiquity offers illuminating insights into the enduring value of Mauss’s work and the influential nature of reciprocity and exchange throughout the course of history.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Satlow, Michael

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Geschichte der klassischen Antike

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Notes on Contributors vii

Series Editor’s Preface x

Preface xii

1 Introduction 1
Michael L. Satlow

2 Ceremonial Gift-Giving: The Lessons of Anthropology from Mauss and Beyond 12
Marcel Hénaff

3 Alms, Blessings, Offerings: The Repertoire of Christian Gifts in Early Byzantium 25
Daniel F. Caner

4 Gift-Giving and Power Relationships in Greek Social Praxis and Public Discourse 45
Marc Domingo Gygax

5 Fictive Giftship and Fictive Friendship in Greco-Roman Society 61
Zeba Crook

6 Ovid Negotiates with His Mistress: Roman Reciprocity from Public to Private 77
Neil Coffee

7 “Can’t Buy Me Love”: The Economy of Gifts in Amorous Relations 96
David Konstan

8 Without Patronage: Fetishization, Representation, and the Circulation of Gift-Texts in the Late Roman Republic 107
Sarah Culpepper Stroup

9 Roses and Violets for the Ancestors: Gifts to the Dead and Ancient Roman Forms of Social Exchange 122
Nicola Denzey Lewis

10 Graffiti as Gift: Mortuary and Devotional Graffiti in the Late Ancient Levant 137
Karen B. Stern

11 Marriage Gifts in Ancient Greece 158
Beate Wagner-Hasel

12 Charity Wounds: Gifts to the Poor in Early Rabbinic Judaism 173
Gregg E. Gardner

13 Barter Deal or Friend-Making Gift? A Reconsideration of the Conditional Vow in the Hebrew Bible 189
Anne Katrine Gudme

14 Neither Mauss, nor Veyne: Peter Brown’s Interpretative Path to the Gift 202
Ilana F. Silber

15 Gifts for God, Gifts for Rabbis: From Sacrifice to Donation in Rabbinic Tales of Late Antiquity and Their Dialogue with Early Christian Texts 221
Galit Hasan-Rokem

Index of Subjects and Names 245

Index of Ancient Sources 253

Über Autor(innen)

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Michael L. Satlow is Professor of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies at Brown University. He is a co-editor of Religion and the Self in Antiquity (2005) and the author of Creating Judaism: History, Tradition, Practice (2006); Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (2001); Tasting the Dish: Rabbinic Rhetorics of Sexuality (1995), and numerous essays on Jews and Judaism in antiquity.