The spatial turn has brought forward new analytical imperatives about the importance of space in the relationship between physical and social networks of meaning. This volume explores this in relation to approaches and methodologies in the study of urban space in Roman Italy. As a consequence of these new imperatives, sociological studies on ancient Roman cities are flourishing, demonstrating a new set of approaches that have developed separately from "traditional" historical and topographical analyses. Rethinking the Roman City represents a convergence of these different approaches to propose a new interpretive model, looking at the Roman city and one of its key elements: the forum. After an introductory discussion of methodological issues, internationally-know specialists consider three key sites of the Roman world – Rome, Ostia and Pompeii. Chapters focus on physical space and/or the use of those spaces to inter-relate these different approaches. The focus then moves to the Forum Romanum, considering the possible analytical trajectories available (historical, topographical, literary, comparative and sociological), and the diversity of possible perspectives within each of these, moving towards an innovative understanding of the role of the forum within the Roman city. This volume will be of great value to scholars of ancient cities across the Roman world, well as historians of urban society and development throughout the ancient world.

Ancient Classical authors have painted the Druids in a bad light, defining them as a barbaric priesthood, who 2,000 years ago perpetrated savage and blood rites in ancient Britain and Gaul in the name of their gods. Archaeology tells a different and more complicated story of this enigmatic priesthood, a theocracy with immense political and sacred power. This book explores the tangible ‘footprint’ the Druids have left behind: in sacred spaces, art, ritual equipment, images of the gods, strange burial rites and human sacrifice. Their material culture indicates how close was the relationship between Druids and the spirit-world, which evidence suggests they accessed through drug-induced trance.

This book is an inter-disciplinary endeavour. Encompassing education and basic research, it discusses the modular-curriculum embodied in The Epistle from educational, historical, sociolinguistic, anthropological, phenomenological, and non-sectarian perspectives. It shows the cross-boundary philosophical reasoning and pedagogic dimensions of St. Paul as a great teacher and thinker from the Jewish-and-Christian faith. In doing so, this book refocuses academia’s attention on the inevitable antimonic nature inherent in humans’ efforts to create systemic knowledge. Knowledge about the inner aesthetic and volitional-interpretative self – the immanent psychic “I” – and other philosophical aspects of the realm of the transcendental should be rescued from the deepening trends of secularity. Being strong, powerful, productive, and performative should not be taken as the indisputable and exclusive aim of education. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) do not constitute a sufficient basis for building a better humanity. Education via public curriculums ought to serve both the belly and the mind. Deliberative curricular recalibrations, with rationales for grace, are thus needed for a better future for humanity.... This book is relevant for anyone with a core fascination about truths, values, epistemologies, life, spirituality, and holistic human development. It can also be used as a textbook or a reference in a number of fields including counselling, psychology, translation, cultural studies, and theology.

Developments in science and technology, demand-driven education and practices, climate change, the gradual decrease in natural resources, and economic constraints all combine to drive increased interest in research in architecture and urbanism at EU levels. In light of this, the EURAU conferences were initiated in 2004 to create a platform for researchers to share their own research outputs and knowledge, and to discuss problems emerging in architecture and urbanism with a view to develop solutions. This book brings together 19 selected papers delivered at the EURAU2014 Istanbul “Composite Cities” Conference, the primary aim of which was to provide a medium in which the complex relationships between urban form and urban experience could be discussed. The conference did this by examining four composite characters of today’s cities: the hybrid city, the morphed city, the fragmented city and the mutated city. The volume addresses the importance of research on the complexity of today’s cities, cities that are transforming on various levels from local to global, while also shedding light on new models of urbanism discussed together with new decision-making actors.

This volume brings together papers dealing with therapeutic aspects connected to thermo-mineral sites both in Italy and in the Roman Provinces, as well as cultic issues surrounding health and healing.

This book considers the post-68 French city as a prism through which to understand the contemporary world and France’s specificity within it. The reader is invited to join in a series of exploratory strolls through texts, buildings, and neighborhoods, and thereby share in a process of discovery. Zeroing in on international architectural debates, a range of key Parisian exhibitions, and major urban design decisions in Paris, Montpellier, and Lille, Yaari unravels an often-acerbic French critique of both modern and postmodern positions on culture, technology, and the city. This critique—stemming from the competing claims of national identity, the ethics of architecture and display, and an anthropologically informed revision of prevailing views on the city—has sparked in France a passionate search for a third path, which the author proposes to term après-moderne. Breaking new ground in the field of French Studies through cultural analysis of the contemporary city, this study brings new insight to scholars and professionals in architecture and urbanism, and will interest all others for whom France and cities in general hold special appeal.

Prevalent among classicists today is the notion that Greeks, Romans, and Jews enhanced their own self-perception by contrasting themselves with the so-called Other--Egyptians, Phoenicians, Ethiopians, Gauls, and other foreigners--frequently through hostile stereotypes, distortions, and caricature. In this provocative book, Erich Gruen demonstrates how the ancients found connections rather than contrasts, how they expressed admiration for the achievements and principles of other societies, and how they discerned--and even invented--kinship relations and shared roots with diverse peoples. Gruen shows how the ancients incorporated the traditions of foreign nations, and imagined blood ties and associations with distant cultures through myth, legend, and fictive histories. He looks at a host of creative tales, including those describing the founding of Thebes by the Phoenician Cadmus, Rome's embrace of Trojan and Arcadian origins, and Abraham as ancestor to the Spartans. Gruen gives in-depth readings of major texts by Aeschylus, Herodotus, Xenophon, Plutarch, Julius Caesar, Tacitus, and others, in addition to portions of the Hebrew Bible, revealing how they offer richly nuanced portraits of the alien that go well beyond stereotypes and caricature. Providing extraordinary insight into the ancient world, this controversial book explores how ancient attitudes toward the Other often expressed mutuality and connection, and not simply contrast and alienation.

In this collection of essays, an international group of renowned scholars attempt to establish the theoretical basis for studying the ancient and medieval history of the Mediterranean Sea and the lands around it. In so doing they range far afield to other Mediterraneans, real and imaginary, as distant as Brazil and Japan. Their work is an essential tool for understanding the Mediterranean, pre-modern and modern alike. It speaks to ancient and medieval historians, to archaeologists, anthropologists and all historians with environmental interests, and not least to classicists.

A vision of contemporary China from the inside, Xu's essays offer a liberal reaction to the complexity of China's rise.