New Books in Ancient History

In this episode we speak with Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness core faculty, Jack Bagby about his engagement with the philosophy of music, from Socrates, to Schopenhauer, and Bergson. We discuss Jack’s recent PCC class called The Philosophy of Music and the Attunement of the Soul and dive into the complex ideas of these thinkers regarding the transformative powers of music. Jack explains how the ancient Greek’s developed a complex set of tuning systems and alternative temperaments with powerful attributes and psychic properties, in which one can attune themselves to through the development of an affective psychology. Jack, and myself have been experimenting composing and improvising in these these modes and we share 3 pieces based on ancient Greek modes.PCC Forum with Jack Bagby: Tuning, Caring for, and Recollecting the Soul in Socrates' SwansongsMusical Compositions in the Episode by Jack Bagby and Jonathan Kay1. A Paean of Apollo the Healer in Archytas' Dorian Diatonic2. Ptolemy soft diatonic3. A prelude to the compromises of universality. Ptolemy's Even DiatonicJohn (Jack) Bagby received his PhD. in philosophy from Boston College in 2021, and a B.A. in philosophy and ancient Greek language, from the Pennsylvania State University in 2013. Professor Bagby conducts research on the history of philosophy, focusing on problems related to consciousness, nature, and evolution. He has published in Epoché and Journal for the British Society of Phenomenology, on ancient Greek philosophy and phenomenology (especially Henri Bergson) and has strong research interests in Baruch Spinoza, 19th-20th century European philosophy, process philosophy, philosophy of music, and aesthetics. He is currently working on a translation of Bergson's 1902-3 Lectures at the Collège de France The History of The Idea of Time (Bloomsbury Press), and finishing up the manuscript of his monograph Integrals of Experience: Aristotle and Bergson. When thinking about complex concepts or solving textual problems, Jack loves to construct diagrams and concept maps. Between 2016-2018 he combined his love for creating visualizations with his love of Spinoza to create a website that maps the complex textual citations used in his magnum opus, the Ethics.The EWP Podcast credits East-West Psychology Podcast Website Connect with EWP: Website • Youtube • Facebook Hosted by Stephen Julich (EWP Core Faculty) and Jonathan Kay (PhD student, EWP assistant) Produced by: Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay Edited and Mixed by: Jonathan Kay Introduction music: Mosaic, by Monsoon on the album Mandala Introduction Voiceover: Roche Wadehra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In John Cassian and the Creation of Monastic Subjectivity (Equinox Books, 2023), a revision of his 2019 dissertation, Joshua Schachterle evaluates the Institutes and Conferences of John Cassian with a keen eye toward the possibility that he envisioned monasticism as a version of Christian piety distinct from that of the institutional church. Schachterle elaborates on comments from a variety of monastic writings indicating that monks should “flee” from bishops, who characteristically sought to ordain these famous ascetic figures for broader church service and to enlist them for support in theological disagreements against the mounting ideological challenges of so-called heretics. Furthermore, Schachterle observes that materials internal to monastic discourses, ranging from the various collections of sayings (“apophthegmata”) of the Desert Fathers and Mothers to the writings of Cassian himself, formed a closed discursive system that made no meaningful appeals to the more mainstream institutional church fathers, and he argues that Cassian pursues a separate monastic authority based not on apostolic succession but on apostolic praxis, the notion that monastic practices such as prayer and asceticism can be traced back to the primitive church without recourse to genealogical rhetoric privileging the identities of bishops as guarantors of the true faith. Finally, Schachterle leans on Michel Foucault’s analysis of the creation of subjects to examine Cassian’s formation of a specifically Egyptian form of monastic subjectivity for his new Western audience, the monks of Gaul. Schachterle joined the New Books Network recently to discuss these topics, the origins of Egyptian monasticism, and more from his engaging study of John Cassian’s primary works.Joshua Schachterle (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) undertook his doctoral studies after a long career as a punk rock musician and an equally long and overlapping career as a high school English teacher. His research focuses on the origins of Christian monasticism and how early monastic texts contributed to the formation and development of both eastern and western Christianity in the Late Antique period. He currently writes articles on the New Testament and Early Christianity, with subjects ranging from The Didache to the Gospel of Matthew and John the Baptist, for Bart Ehrman’s website and Early Christian Texts, and he has a forthcoming article in Cistercian Studies Quarterly on monastic uses of Scripture.Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, please see his website at https://www.robheaton.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Barbara M. Sattler's book The Concept of Motion in Ancient Greek Thought: Foundations in Logic, Method, and Mathematics (Cambridge UP, 2020) examines the birth of the scientific understanding of motion. It investigates which logical tools and methodological principles had to be in place to give a consistent account of motion, and which mathematical notions were introduced to gain control over conceptual problems of motion. It shows how the idea of motion raised two fundamental problems in the 5th and 4th century BCE: bringing together being and non-being, and bringing together time and space. The first problem leads to the exclusion of motion from the realm of rational investigation in Parmenides, the second to Zeno's paradoxes of motion. Methodological and logical developments reacting to these puzzles are shown to be present implicitly in the atomists, and explicitly in Plato who also employs mathematical structures to make motion intelligible. With Aristotle we finally see the first outline of the fundamental framework with which we conceptualise motion today.Professor Barbara Sattler is Chair in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at the Ruhr University Bochum. The main area of her research is metaphysics and natural philosophy in the ancient Greek world.Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over the last three centuries, the West rose to dominate the planet. Then, around the start of the new millennium, history took a dramatic turn. Faced with economic stagnation and internal political division, the West has found itself in rapid decline compared to the global periphery it had previously colonized. This is not the first time we have seen such a rise and fall: the Roman Empire followed a similar arc, from dizzying power to disintegration.In Why Empires Fall: Rome, America, and the Future of the West (Yale UP, 2023) Historian Peter Heather and political economist John Rapley explore the uncanny parallels, and productive differences between ancient Rome and the modern West, moving beyond the tropes of invading barbarians and civilizational decay to unearth new lessons. From 399 to 1999, they argue, through the unfolding of parallel, underlying imperial life cycles, both empires sowed the seeds of their own destruction. Has the era of Western global domination indeed reached its end? Heather and Rapley contemplate what comes next.Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House’s International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the generation after Constantine the Great elevated Christianity to a dominant position in the Roman Empire, his nephew, the Emperor Julian, sought to reinstate the old gods to their former place of prominence--in the face of intense opposition from the newly powerful Christian church. In early 363 c.e., while living in Syrian Antioch, Julian redoubled his efforts to hellenize the Roman Empire by turning to an unlikely source: the Jews. With a war against Persia on the horizon, Julian thought it crucial that all Romans propitiate the true gods and gain their favor through proper practice. To convince his people, he drew on Jews, whom he characterized as Judeans, using their scriptures, institutions, practices, and heroes sometimes as sources for his program and often as models to emulate. In The Specter of the Jews: Emperor Julian and the Rhetoric of Ethnicity in Syrian Antioch (U California Press, 2018), Ari Finkelstein examines Julian's writings and views on Jews as Judeans, a venerable group whose religious practices and values would help delegitimize Christianity and, surprisingly, shape a new imperial Hellenic pagan identity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Even if the term "Serial Killer" wasn’t coined until the end of the 20th century, the practice of multiple murder has followed humanity through the ages. In Monsters and Monarchs: Serial Killers in Classical Myth and History (U Texas Press, 2021), professor Debbie Felton digs deep into the sources to demonstrate instances of what we might recognize as serial killers in antiquity, from myth to Imperial Rome to rhetorical exercises and maybe even on our small screens at home. Tracing these gruesome lineages, she exposes examples of these “types” of criminals through history, including more recognizable names like Jack the Ripper and Jeffrey Dahmer. What is mirrored are the characteristics we recognize as multiple homicidal psychopathy within ancient history and myth. This book is a complex and fascinating interweave of classical myth, ancient history, and true crime as manifesting in both our modern imaginations and those of generations past.Liz Barrett is a History PhD student Lehigh University, a CSA Farmer, mother of 3, and veteran of the USMC. She lives in suburban Philadelphia where she reads and writes a lot, and really, really likes old stuff. On Twitter: @lizcantlose. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael Baltutis' book The Festival of Indra: Innovation, Archaism, and Revival in a South Asian Performance (SUNY Press, 2023) details the textual and performative history of an important South Asian festival and its role in the development of classical Hinduism. Drawing on various genres of Sanskrit textual sources--especially the epic Mahābhārata--the book highlights the innovative ways that this annual public festival has supported the stable royal power responsible for the sponsorship of these texts. More than just a textual project, however, the book devotes significant ethnographic attention to the only contemporary performance of this festival that adheres to the classical Sanskrit record: the Indrajatra of Kathmandu, Nepal. Here, Indra's tall pole remains the festival's focal point, though its addition of the royal blessing by Kumari, the "living goddess" of Nepal, and the regular presence of the fierce god Bhairav show several significant ways that ritual agents have re-constructed this festival over the past two thousand years.Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alongside their collective acumen in traditional historical-critical and social-scientific approaches to the New Testament, James Crossley and Robert J. Myles bring a worthwhile dose of historical materialist criticism to historical Jesus scholarship in Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict (Zero Books/John Hunt Publishing, 2023). And while the Jesus they reconstruct from the various sources available for analysis may not evolve him into a Marxist or a modern socialist, Crossley and Myles regard the evidence for deprivation among the Judean/Galilean peasantry too significant to ignore, such that “revolutionary millenarianism” takes hold among these lower classes who yearned for a great reversal of material conditions and fortunes under a soon-to-be-revealed theocratic reign installing the “Jesus party” (that they occasionally, in a nod to the traditions of Marxist scholarship, refer to as a politburo) atop the forthcoming kingdom of God. This pair of scholars joined the New Books Network recently to discuss their “historical materialist Jesus” and their fresh contributions—from Jesus’s “mission to the rich” to his “preferential option for death”—to the ongoing quest to sift reliable historical data about the earliest Jesus movement from the outwardly theological gospels that remain our best sources for his life.James Crossley (Ph.D., University of Nottingham, 2002) is Professor of Religion, Politics and Culture at MF Oslo and the Academic Director of the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CenSAMM). He has published widely on Christian origins and religion in English political history, including Spectres of John Ball: The Peasants’ Revolt in English Political History, 1381–2020 (Equinox, 2022).Robert J. Myles (Ph.D., University of Auckland, 2013) is Senior Lecturer in New Testament at the University of Divinity in Australia. Originally from Aotearoa New Zealand, he is currently Executive Editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus. Among his publications are The Homeless Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014) and the edited volume Class Struggle in the New Testament (Lexington/Fortress Academic, 2019).Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, please see his website at https://www.robheaton.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ruth Yun-Ju Chen is a historian of mid-imperial China (600–1400). Her research interests lie in the histories of medicine, publishing, and material cultures during this period. Her first book, Good Formulas: Empirical Evidence in Mid-Imperial Chinese Medical Texts, will come out from the University of Washington Press in 2023. This book charts how early print culture reshaped strategies for presenting medical knowledge in Song China (960–1279). Her current project explores the transregional circulation of medical knowledge and aromatic drugs across East Asia and Southeast Asia in Song-Jin-Yuan China (960–1368). She has published articles in Chinese and English language journals and, most recently, “A New Study of Scholar-officials’ Roles in the Printing of Medical Texts in Song China” in the Bulletin of IHP 92.3 (2021) and “The Quest for Efficiency: Knowledge Management in Medical Formularies” in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 80.2 (2021).A bit about the book:Why and how did the strategy of documenting medical practices through personal experience rise to prominence in China? This question is at the heart of Good Formulas, the first book-length study of the use of empirical evidence in Chinese medicine between the ninth and thirteenth centuries. The rise of this new approach to substantiating knowledge, which had appeared only sporadically in earlier medical literature, provides a window into transformations in the construction of textual authority in mid-imperial China.Focusing on medical genres and working extensively with notebooks (biji), Ruth Yun-Ju Chen shows that employing empirical evidence became prominent in conjunction with a publishing boom that enabled wider availability of medical texts and treatises. To convince a more socioculturally diverse readership to believe their claims and to win intertextual debates with contemporaneous authors, many Song medical authors turned to empirical methodology. Revealing a correlation between publishing cultures and changes in persuasion strategies in medical genres, Good Formulas offers new insights into the histories of medicine, knowledge production, and publishing in China. It also provides rich examples for scholars interested in the development of empirical evidence in the premodern world.Victoria Oana Lupașcu is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Asian Studies at University of Montréal. Her areas of interest include medical humanities, visual art, 20th and 21st Chinese, Brazilian and Romanian literature and Global South studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever wondered why Paul leaves the resurrection discussion in 1 Corinthians 15 for the end of the letter? Have you pondered how 1 Corinthians 15 functions as the climax to 1 Corinthians? What precisely is Paul's rhetorical strategy in 1 Corinthians?Tune in as we speak with Timothy Christian whose recent book answers those questions by exploring insinuatio, the Greco-Roman rhetorical convention used to address prejudiced or controversial topics—like resurrection—at the end of a discourse. The book is Paul and the Rhetoric of Resurrection: 1 Corinthians 15 as Insinuatio (Brill, 2022).Timothy J. Christian is Adjunct Professor of Christian Studies & Philosophy at Asbury University and Associate Pastor of Wesley UMC in Canton, IL.Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus(IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices