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OIKOS course Sanctuaries and the Sacred

From:Su 01-08-2021
Until:Su 08-08-2021
Where:Utrecht/Netherlands Institute in Athens

OIKOS invites current RMA and PhD students to take part in the OIKOS/Hieron Summer School Sanctuaries and the Sacred, 1-8 August 2021 (Dutch Institute at Athens).

About the course

This is a 5 ECTS-course, taught by Dr Floris van den Eijnde and Dr Janric van Rookhuijzen.

Sanctuaries and the Sacred focuses on the development of sacrality (“sacredness”) in Greek sanctuaries from the Late Bronze age to the Hellenistic period. Sacrality defined social, cultural and political life at its very core: it determined not only the proper way of conduct of humans with regard to the gods, but also defined social relationships between humans by posing strict (often implicitly understood) rules. This embeddedness of Greek religion places is thus key to understanding many forms of social, cultural and political interaction in the Greek world.

During this course, we ask why sanctuaries developed into the principal centers where societal ideas about divinely sanctioned conduct came together and from which these ideas in turn emanated. We will be studying the various constituent components that made up sanctuaries as centers of religion: human actors, ritual practice, mythological traditions and religious monuments. We will question how sacrality interacted with political power, the economy and the arts. We will furthermore seek to understand sacrality outside of sanctuaries proper: How did curses, oaths and invocations shape the “profane” world? And how did sacrality shape public spaces such as the Agora?

More information and registration

Read the full course manual for more information. To enroll, please send a letter of motivation with a short CV to Floris van den Eijnde.

For an overview of OIKOS education, take a look at the upcoming courses for PhD and ReMA students.