The Temporality of Festivals : Approaches to Festive Time in Ancient Babylon, Greece, Rome, and Medieval China

Anke Walter

ISBN 10: 3111364860 / ISBN 13: 9783111364865

Published by De Gruyter, Einstein Center Chronoi, 2024

About this Item

Neuware - How can time become festive How do festivals manage to make time 'special', to mark out a certain day or days, to distinguish them from 'normal', everyday time, and to fill them with meaning And how can we reconstruct what festive time looked like in the past and what people thought about it While a lot of research has been done on festivals from the point of view of several scholarly disciplines, the specific temporality of festivals has not yet attracted sufficient attention. In this volume, scholars from different fields provide answers to the questions raised above, based on a fresh analysis of astronomical documents, calendars, and literary texts. Cultures as diverse as ancient Babylon, Greece and Rome, and medieval China all share a sense of calendrically recurring festive time as something special that needs to be carefully mapped out and preserved, often with great sophistication, and that gives us precious insights into the broader religious, political, and social dimensions of time within past cultures.

Seller Inventory # 9783111364865

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Temporality of Festivals : Approaches to Festive Time in Ancient Babylon, Greece, Rome, and Medieval China
• Publisher: De Gruyter, Einstein Center Chronoi
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3111364860
• ISBN 13: 9783111364865
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 230W x 155H x 34D millimeters 230 millimeters width by 155 millimeters height by 34 millimeters depth
• Weight: 172 grams

About this title

Synopsis

How can time become festive? How do festivals manage to make time ‘special’, to mark out a certain day or days, to distinguish them from ‘normal’, everyday time, and to fill them with meaning? And how can we reconstruct what festive time looked like in the past and what people thought about it?

While a lot of research has been done on festivals from the point of view of several scholarly disciplines, the specific temporality of festivals has not yet attracted sufficient attention. In this volume, scholars from different fields provide answers to the questions raised above, based on a fresh analysis of astronomical documents, calendars, and literary texts. Cultures as diverse as ancient Babylon, Greece and Rome, and medieval China all share a sense of calendrically recurring festive time as something special that needs to be carefully mapped out and preserved, often with great sophistication, and that gives us precious insights into the broader religious, political, and social dimensions of time within past cultures.

About the Author

Anke Walter, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK.