Ceccarelli, P; Doering, L; Fögen, T; Gildenhard, I; (2018) Introduction. In: Ceccarelli, P and Doering, L and Fögen, T and Gildenhard, I, (eds.) Letters and Communities: Studies in the Socio-Political Dimensions of Ancient Epistolography. (pp. 1-39). Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK.

Text Introduction.pdf Access restricted to UCL open access staff Download (411kB)

Abstract

The Introduction surveys scholarly work on letter-writing in the ancient world. While generally of a high standard and often interdisciplinary in nature, bridging such fields as Near Eastern and Jewish Studies, Biblical Studies, Patristics, and Classics, research on ancient epistolography often marginalizes the role of letters in constituting and sustaining communities of various stripes (political, social, ethnic, religious, philosophical). The introduction explores various reasons for this oversight (the overriding importance given to face-to-face communication in public settings, the apparently ‘private’ nature of corresponding via letters, its low rank in the hierarchy of genres, and the marginal status this aspect of letter-writing has in ancient epistolary theory) before outlining why letters played such a vital role in ancient community-building, with an emphasis on long-distance communication, permanence, and the genre’s ideological flexibility and strong pro-social outlook. The second half offers a narrative of the volume, with summaries of its thirteen case studies.

Download activity - last month

Export as XMLCSVJSON

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as XMLCSVJSON

Archive Staff Only

View Item