Research Catalog
Insanity and sanctity in Byzantium : the ambiguity of religious experience
- Title
- Insanity and sanctity in Byzantium : the ambiguity of religious experience / Youval Rotman.
- Author
- Rotman, Youval
- Publication
- Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2016.
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFE 16-11070 | Schwarzman Building - Dorot Jewish Division Room 111 |
Details
- Description
- 256 pages; 25 cm
- Summary
- "Insanity and Sanctity in Byzantium aims to understand how the use of psychological abnormality functions in deep societal transformations, producing a major shift in the religious, cultural, mental, and social aspects. The book examines a particular set of religious phenomena, in a broadly defined period and area - the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East between the birth of Christianity and that of Islam - and seeks to reach conclusions on the nature and function of abnormal behavior sanctified by society. Taking as a starting point a particular type of saint of Orthodox Christianity, the holy fool, the person who feigns madness, and investigating other types of saints who portray abnormal behavior, such as the martyr and the ascetic, the book reveals the ambiguous character of the boundary between sanity and insanity. It explains the significance of this ambiguity to the religious experience as a motor of social movement, and sets it at the core of the socio-religious transformation that changed the Antique civilization into a world of medieval societies."--
- Subject
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-250) and index.
- Contents
- Prologue. Insanity and religion -- Part I. Sanctified insanity: between history and psychology -- The paradox that inhabits ambiguity -- Meanings of insanity -- Part II. Abnormality and social change: early Christianity vs. rabbinic Judaism -- Abnormality and social change: insanity and martyrdom -- Socializing nature: the ascetic totem -- Epilogue. Psychology, religion, and social change.
- Call Number
- JFE 16-11070
- ISBN
- 9780674057616
- 0674057619
- LCCN
- 2015051254
- OCLC
- 936548736
- Author
- Rotman, Youval, author.
- Title
- Insanity and sanctity in Byzantium : the ambiguity of religious experience / Youval Rotman.
- Publisher
- Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2016.
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-250) and index.
- Research Call Number
- JFE 16-11070