Emanuele Tesauro’s Il cannocchiale aristotelico (The Spyglass of Aristotle) is widely considered a masterpiece of the Baroque, mainly because of his theory of metaphor as a cognitive tool. But this work is much more than that. Tesauro presents his volume as the ultimate interpretation of Aristotle’s rhetorical art, which is clearly not the case. Indeed, his work is a polycentric discourse on a revolutionary theory of rhetoric that goes beyond any previous treatise written on the subject, including Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Despite his relevance in the history of rhetorical theories, Tesauro’s work is still waiting for a comprehensive study of its own as well as investigations of some of its specific aspects. Furthermore, the majority of the existing studies of Tesauro are in Italian (with only very few in English), which makes it difficult for this text to reach an international public. This essay explores what seems to be a specific aspect that has so far been almost completely neglected: the role played by the ancient sophists in the Cannocchiale aristotelico and in the history of rhetoric that Tesauro redesigns. Tesauro proclaims his fidelity to Aristotle but actually contradicts Aristotle’s anti-sophistic approach. During this analysis, we will discover even more about Tesauro’s pro-sophistic attitude: he grounds the climax of Latin rhetorical tradition in Greek sophistry. This positive assessment of the ancient sophists, especially Thrasymachus and Gorgias of Leontini, coexists with a critique of Socrates. Except for Sperone Speroni, no other early modern Italian author—or European author—has proposed this radical inversion of the canon established by Plato. This reversal makes Tesauro a relevant case study in the on-going exploration of the legacy of ancient sophists in Western literature.
{"title":"The Ancient Greek Sophists in Emanuele Tesauro’s Il cannocchiale aristotelico (1670): Thrasymachus and Gorgias","authors":"Teodoro Katinis","doi":"10.3390/h13010033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13010033","url":null,"abstract":"Emanuele Tesauro’s Il cannocchiale aristotelico (The Spyglass of Aristotle) is widely considered a masterpiece of the Baroque, mainly because of his theory of metaphor as a cognitive tool. But this work is much more than that. Tesauro presents his volume as the ultimate interpretation of Aristotle’s rhetorical art, which is clearly not the case. Indeed, his work is a polycentric discourse on a revolutionary theory of rhetoric that goes beyond any previous treatise written on the subject, including Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Despite his relevance in the history of rhetorical theories, Tesauro’s work is still waiting for a comprehensive study of its own as well as investigations of some of its specific aspects. Furthermore, the majority of the existing studies of Tesauro are in Italian (with only very few in English), which makes it difficult for this text to reach an international public. This essay explores what seems to be a specific aspect that has so far been almost completely neglected: the role played by the ancient sophists in the Cannocchiale aristotelico and in the history of rhetoric that Tesauro redesigns. Tesauro proclaims his fidelity to Aristotle but actually contradicts Aristotle’s anti-sophistic approach. During this analysis, we will discover even more about Tesauro’s pro-sophistic attitude: he grounds the climax of Latin rhetorical tradition in Greek sophistry. This positive assessment of the ancient sophists, especially Thrasymachus and Gorgias of Leontini, coexists with a critique of Socrates. Except for Sperone Speroni, no other early modern Italian author—or European author—has proposed this radical inversion of the canon established by Plato. This reversal makes Tesauro a relevant case study in the on-going exploration of the legacy of ancient sophists in Western literature.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":"32 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139819291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
To completely understand Dante’s work, we would need to perfectly comprehend the foundations on which it is built, as well as Dante’s own “constructs” and reinterpretations of earlier texts—the transformations of these texts and the whole ideological superstructure of the work built on them. The goal of this essay is to introduce, for the first time in English-language scholarship, a discussion of Pavol Koprda’s Slovak translation of Dante’s Paradise (2020), the result of extensive Slovak academic research on this topic, based on key sections in which Dante’s philosophical background is revealed, and focusing on an interpretation of the third canticle and a reconciliation of the intellectual debates of Dante’s time.
{"title":"Dante’s Philosophical World in the 21st Century: New Approaches in a Slovak Translation of the Third Canticle","authors":"Monika Šavelová","doi":"10.3390/h13010032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13010032","url":null,"abstract":"To completely understand Dante’s work, we would need to perfectly comprehend the foundations on which it is built, as well as Dante’s own “constructs” and reinterpretations of earlier texts—the transformations of these texts and the whole ideological superstructure of the work built on them. The goal of this essay is to introduce, for the first time in English-language scholarship, a discussion of Pavol Koprda’s Slovak translation of Dante’s Paradise (2020), the result of extensive Slovak academic research on this topic, based on key sections in which Dante’s philosophical background is revealed, and focusing on an interpretation of the third canticle and a reconciliation of the intellectual debates of Dante’s time.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":"270 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139826877","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emanuele Tesauro’s Il cannocchiale aristotelico (The Spyglass of Aristotle) is widely considered a masterpiece of the Baroque, mainly because of his theory of metaphor as a cognitive tool. But this work is much more than that. Tesauro presents his volume as the ultimate interpretation of Aristotle’s rhetorical art, which is clearly not the case. Indeed, his work is a polycentric discourse on a revolutionary theory of rhetoric that goes beyond any previous treatise written on the subject, including Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Despite his relevance in the history of rhetorical theories, Tesauro’s work is still waiting for a comprehensive study of its own as well as investigations of some of its specific aspects. Furthermore, the majority of the existing studies of Tesauro are in Italian (with only very few in English), which makes it difficult for this text to reach an international public. This essay explores what seems to be a specific aspect that has so far been almost completely neglected: the role played by the ancient sophists in the Cannocchiale aristotelico and in the history of rhetoric that Tesauro redesigns. Tesauro proclaims his fidelity to Aristotle but actually contradicts Aristotle’s anti-sophistic approach. During this analysis, we will discover even more about Tesauro’s pro-sophistic attitude: he grounds the climax of Latin rhetorical tradition in Greek sophistry. This positive assessment of the ancient sophists, especially Thrasymachus and Gorgias of Leontini, coexists with a critique of Socrates. Except for Sperone Speroni, no other early modern Italian author—or European author—has proposed this radical inversion of the canon established by Plato. This reversal makes Tesauro a relevant case study in the on-going exploration of the legacy of ancient sophists in Western literature.
{"title":"The Ancient Greek Sophists in Emanuele Tesauro’s Il cannocchiale aristotelico (1670): Thrasymachus and Gorgias","authors":"Teodoro Katinis","doi":"10.3390/h13010033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13010033","url":null,"abstract":"Emanuele Tesauro’s Il cannocchiale aristotelico (The Spyglass of Aristotle) is widely considered a masterpiece of the Baroque, mainly because of his theory of metaphor as a cognitive tool. But this work is much more than that. Tesauro presents his volume as the ultimate interpretation of Aristotle’s rhetorical art, which is clearly not the case. Indeed, his work is a polycentric discourse on a revolutionary theory of rhetoric that goes beyond any previous treatise written on the subject, including Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Despite his relevance in the history of rhetorical theories, Tesauro’s work is still waiting for a comprehensive study of its own as well as investigations of some of its specific aspects. Furthermore, the majority of the existing studies of Tesauro are in Italian (with only very few in English), which makes it difficult for this text to reach an international public. This essay explores what seems to be a specific aspect that has so far been almost completely neglected: the role played by the ancient sophists in the Cannocchiale aristotelico and in the history of rhetoric that Tesauro redesigns. Tesauro proclaims his fidelity to Aristotle but actually contradicts Aristotle’s anti-sophistic approach. During this analysis, we will discover even more about Tesauro’s pro-sophistic attitude: he grounds the climax of Latin rhetorical tradition in Greek sophistry. This positive assessment of the ancient sophists, especially Thrasymachus and Gorgias of Leontini, coexists with a critique of Socrates. Except for Sperone Speroni, no other early modern Italian author—or European author—has proposed this radical inversion of the canon established by Plato. This reversal makes Tesauro a relevant case study in the on-going exploration of the legacy of ancient sophists in Western literature.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":"50 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139879124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the process of adapting a written narrative for the silver screen, there is much that can be lost (or gained) in translation. Arrival, Denis Villeneuve’s adaption of Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life, is no exception. Often analyzed as a work of science fiction, this article argues that understanding Arrival as a work of the frontier gothic renders the attempted erasure of Indigenous presence in the film visible. The frontier gothic elements of Arrival, most prominently the transformation of Chiang’s protagonist, Louise, into a frontier hero(ine), and the looming Montana setting, both evoke and attempt to erase the Indigenous presence in this “frontier”. As a frontier hero, Louise ultimately supersedes the aliens of Arrival, absorbing and appropriating their knowledge and language to save the world (and the superiority of the United States).
{"title":"Attempted Indigenous Erasure and Frontier Gothic in Arrival (2016)","authors":"B. Webster-Parmentier","doi":"10.3390/h13010029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13010029","url":null,"abstract":"In the process of adapting a written narrative for the silver screen, there is much that can be lost (or gained) in translation. Arrival, Denis Villeneuve’s adaption of Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life, is no exception. Often analyzed as a work of science fiction, this article argues that understanding Arrival as a work of the frontier gothic renders the attempted erasure of Indigenous presence in the film visible. The frontier gothic elements of Arrival, most prominently the transformation of Chiang’s protagonist, Louise, into a frontier hero(ine), and the looming Montana setting, both evoke and attempt to erase the Indigenous presence in this “frontier”. As a frontier hero, Louise ultimately supersedes the aliens of Arrival, absorbing and appropriating their knowledge and language to save the world (and the superiority of the United States).","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":"5 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139829591","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the process of adapting a written narrative for the silver screen, there is much that can be lost (or gained) in translation. Arrival, Denis Villeneuve’s adaption of Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life, is no exception. Often analyzed as a work of science fiction, this article argues that understanding Arrival as a work of the frontier gothic renders the attempted erasure of Indigenous presence in the film visible. The frontier gothic elements of Arrival, most prominently the transformation of Chiang’s protagonist, Louise, into a frontier hero(ine), and the looming Montana setting, both evoke and attempt to erase the Indigenous presence in this “frontier”. As a frontier hero, Louise ultimately supersedes the aliens of Arrival, absorbing and appropriating their knowledge and language to save the world (and the superiority of the United States).
{"title":"Attempted Indigenous Erasure and Frontier Gothic in Arrival (2016)","authors":"B. Webster-Parmentier","doi":"10.3390/h13010029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13010029","url":null,"abstract":"In the process of adapting a written narrative for the silver screen, there is much that can be lost (or gained) in translation. Arrival, Denis Villeneuve’s adaption of Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life, is no exception. Often analyzed as a work of science fiction, this article argues that understanding Arrival as a work of the frontier gothic renders the attempted erasure of Indigenous presence in the film visible. The frontier gothic elements of Arrival, most prominently the transformation of Chiang’s protagonist, Louise, into a frontier hero(ine), and the looming Montana setting, both evoke and attempt to erase the Indigenous presence in this “frontier”. As a frontier hero, Louise ultimately supersedes the aliens of Arrival, absorbing and appropriating their knowledge and language to save the world (and the superiority of the United States).","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":"35 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139889804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
To completely understand Dante’s work, we would need to perfectly comprehend the foundations on which it is built, as well as Dante’s own “constructs” and reinterpretations of earlier texts—the transformations of these texts and the whole ideological superstructure of the work built on them. The goal of this essay is to introduce, for the first time in English-language scholarship, a discussion of Pavol Koprda’s Slovak translation of Dante’s Paradise (2020), the result of extensive Slovak academic research on this topic, based on key sections in which Dante’s philosophical background is revealed, and focusing on an interpretation of the third canticle and a reconciliation of the intellectual debates of Dante’s time.
{"title":"Dante’s Philosophical World in the 21st Century: New Approaches in a Slovak Translation of the Third Canticle","authors":"Monika Šavelová","doi":"10.3390/h13010032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13010032","url":null,"abstract":"To completely understand Dante’s work, we would need to perfectly comprehend the foundations on which it is built, as well as Dante’s own “constructs” and reinterpretations of earlier texts—the transformations of these texts and the whole ideological superstructure of the work built on them. The goal of this essay is to introduce, for the first time in English-language scholarship, a discussion of Pavol Koprda’s Slovak translation of Dante’s Paradise (2020), the result of extensive Slovak academic research on this topic, based on key sections in which Dante’s philosophical background is revealed, and focusing on an interpretation of the third canticle and a reconciliation of the intellectual debates of Dante’s time.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":"57 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139886528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Historicizing the musical genre known as “Chicago blues,” I further complicate Richard Wright’s already complicated attitudes toward “the folk” and modernity. Utilizing close readings of 12 Million Black Voices, I show how Wright’s apparent denigration of the blues as an outmoded, pre-modern artistic form is dependent on his historical situation writing before the advent of a new electrified form of blues that developed in Chicago shortly after the book’s publication. Utilizing biographical details of the life of Muddy Waters, I show how his work as a musician in Mississippi, then in Chicago, and his development of an electrified blues style, parallels and personifies the shift from an African American perspective rooted in an agrarian, pre-modern south to an industrial, modern north documented so effectively by Wright. Furthermore, the Chicago blues musicians’ transmogrification of the rural Delta blues into an electrified, urban expression manifests the vernacular-modernist artistic conception which Wright seems to be envisioning and pointing toward in 12 Million Black Voices.
{"title":"“The Noise of Our Living”: Richard Wright and Chicago Blues","authors":"Jeffrey A Wimble","doi":"10.3390/h13010028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13010028","url":null,"abstract":"Historicizing the musical genre known as “Chicago blues,” I further complicate Richard Wright’s already complicated attitudes toward “the folk” and modernity. Utilizing close readings of 12 Million Black Voices, I show how Wright’s apparent denigration of the blues as an outmoded, pre-modern artistic form is dependent on his historical situation writing before the advent of a new electrified form of blues that developed in Chicago shortly after the book’s publication. Utilizing biographical details of the life of Muddy Waters, I show how his work as a musician in Mississippi, then in Chicago, and his development of an electrified blues style, parallels and personifies the shift from an African American perspective rooted in an agrarian, pre-modern south to an industrial, modern north documented so effectively by Wright. Furthermore, the Chicago blues musicians’ transmogrification of the rural Delta blues into an electrified, urban expression manifests the vernacular-modernist artistic conception which Wright seems to be envisioning and pointing toward in 12 Million Black Voices.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":"481 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140478283","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Studies show that diverse representation in children’s literature can positively impact the self-perceptions of marginalized children. To promote feelings of self-worth, children must see their cultural identities authentically portrayed in a manner that does not promote stereotypes in stories that affirm and support their world experiences. This essay focuses specifically on Afro-Latin@ identity in the United States and the role Afro-Latin@ representation in children’s and young adult literature can play in shaping Afro-Latin@ feelings regarding race and cultural heritage, and in constructing and affirming self-identity and feelings of self-worth.
{"title":"Afro-Latin@ Representation in Youth Literature: Affirming Afro-Latin@ Cultural Identity","authors":"Ada Malcioln Martin","doi":"10.3390/h13010027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13010027","url":null,"abstract":"Studies show that diverse representation in children’s literature can positively impact the self-perceptions of marginalized children. To promote feelings of self-worth, children must see their cultural identities authentically portrayed in a manner that does not promote stereotypes in stories that affirm and support their world experiences. This essay focuses specifically on Afro-Latin@ identity in the United States and the role Afro-Latin@ representation in children’s and young adult literature can play in shaping Afro-Latin@ feelings regarding race and cultural heritage, and in constructing and affirming self-identity and feelings of self-worth.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":"618 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140483039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article historicizes the character of Bouki in the context of Creole Louisiana, showing how the story of Bouki has evolved to become the story of Kouri-Vini, Louisiana’s native and endangered Creole language. This historicization takes place in three distinct periods; those periods are defined by their relation to Kouri-Vini. The first period aligns with the Antebellum period; the second aligns with the early 20th century; and the final coincides with the present day. Moving across these periods, Bouki finds himself demoted, at which point he enters the ‘creolized folkloresque.’ The folkloresque is a larger mosaic of folkloric forms detached from the material conditions of their production and available to popular culture; for the folkloresque to be creolized designates the same process but under vastly unequal social and material conditions. In short, Bouki enters the creolized folkloresque, becoming a folkoresque figure available to all who find themselves subject to creolized conditions. In the pre-American part of Louisiana’s history, creolized conditions included slavery and colonization; post-Americanization, linguistic discrimination plays an outsized role. Where such conditions persist in Louisiana, there Bouki can be found.
{"title":"The Secret Lives of Bouki: Louisiana’s Creolized Folkloresque","authors":"Rich Paul Cooper","doi":"10.3390/h13010026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13010026","url":null,"abstract":"This article historicizes the character of Bouki in the context of Creole Louisiana, showing how the story of Bouki has evolved to become the story of Kouri-Vini, Louisiana’s native and endangered Creole language. This historicization takes place in three distinct periods; those periods are defined by their relation to Kouri-Vini. The first period aligns with the Antebellum period; the second aligns with the early 20th century; and the final coincides with the present day. Moving across these periods, Bouki finds himself demoted, at which point he enters the ‘creolized folkloresque.’ The folkloresque is a larger mosaic of folkloric forms detached from the material conditions of their production and available to popular culture; for the folkloresque to be creolized designates the same process but under vastly unequal social and material conditions. In short, Bouki enters the creolized folkloresque, becoming a folkoresque figure available to all who find themselves subject to creolized conditions. In the pre-American part of Louisiana’s history, creolized conditions included slavery and colonization; post-Americanization, linguistic discrimination plays an outsized role. Where such conditions persist in Louisiana, there Bouki can be found.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":"149 39","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140484825","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ana Satiro, Isabel Gomes de Almeida, Cristina Brito
Diachronically, Mesopotamian data pertaining to the religious spheres point to a transversal notion that deities were considered responsible for every cause–effect event observed/experienced by humans in their natural/cosmic surroundings. Such notion is especially visible on texts pertaining to the restoration of human health, where such an aspect was ultimately considered as a divine prerogative. Yet, these textual data also show how natural elements were basilar to the success of healing practices when thoroughly manipulated by specialists. Their examination through a perspective that intertwines the apparatus of History of Religions and Environmental History thus reveals great potential for contributing to the topic of human/nonhuman entanglements in the longue durée. With this paper, we propose to revisit the uses of aquatic fauna as displayed in Babylonian and Assyrian healing texts dated to the second half of the 2nd millennium and the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Although at a preliminary stage, our research has been guided by the combined theoretical-methodological perspective above-mentioned, aiming at highlighting the great importance conferred to these animals. Ultimately, we aim at stressing the importance of addressing the dependence of Mesopotamian specialists and patients on such elements of Nature to better understand this ancient context.
{"title":"The Importance of Aquatic Fauna on Ancient Mesopotamian Healing Practices—An Environmental Humanities Approach to Human Dependency of Non-Human World","authors":"Ana Satiro, Isabel Gomes de Almeida, Cristina Brito","doi":"10.3390/h13010025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/h13010025","url":null,"abstract":"Diachronically, Mesopotamian data pertaining to the religious spheres point to a transversal notion that deities were considered responsible for every cause–effect event observed/experienced by humans in their natural/cosmic surroundings. Such notion is especially visible on texts pertaining to the restoration of human health, where such an aspect was ultimately considered as a divine prerogative. Yet, these textual data also show how natural elements were basilar to the success of healing practices when thoroughly manipulated by specialists. Their examination through a perspective that intertwines the apparatus of History of Religions and Environmental History thus reveals great potential for contributing to the topic of human/nonhuman entanglements in the longue durée. With this paper, we propose to revisit the uses of aquatic fauna as displayed in Babylonian and Assyrian healing texts dated to the second half of the 2nd millennium and the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Although at a preliminary stage, our research has been guided by the combined theoretical-methodological perspective above-mentioned, aiming at highlighting the great importance conferred to these animals. Ultimately, we aim at stressing the importance of addressing the dependence of Mesopotamian specialists and patients on such elements of Nature to better understand this ancient context.","PeriodicalId":509613,"journal":{"name":"Humanities","volume":"50 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139593774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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