Research Catalog

Title

Writing and power in the Roman world : literacies and material culture / Hella Eckardt, University of Reading.

Author

Eckardt, Hella

Publication

• Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2018.
• ©2018

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xvi, 268 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), map; 27 cm

Summary

"In this book, Hella Eckardt offers new insights into literacy in the Roman world by examining the tools that enabled writing, such as inkwells, styli and tablets. Literacy was an important skill in the ancient world and power could be and often was, exercised through texts. Eckardt explores how writing equipment shaped practices such as posture and handwriting and her careful analysis of burial data shows considerable numbers of women and children interred with writing equipment, notably inkwells, in an effort to display status as well as age and gender. The volume offers a comprehensive review of recent approaches to literacy during Roman antiquity and adds a distinctive material turn to our understanding of this crucial skill and the embodied practices of its use. At the heart of this study lies the nature of the relationship between the material culture of writing and socio-cultural identities in the Roman period."--

Subjects

• Rome (Empire)
• Literacy > Rome
• Writing materials and instruments
• Latin language > Written Latin
• HISTORY > Ancient > General

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-260) and index.

Contents

Part I. Understanding literacies, material culture and practice in the Roman world. Introduction: Literacies, power and identities ; The practicalities of literacy: writing implements in the Roman world ; Literacy as technology and practice -- Part II. A case study. Materials and production ; Metal inkwells in the Roman Empire ; A practice turn: thinking about inkwell use ; The spatial and social distribution of inkwells -- Part III. Writing equipment in funerary contexts and the expression of identities. Literacy as performance: self-presentation of the educated elite? ; Literacy and the life course: gender ; Literacy and the life course: age ; Literacy, the body and elite identities: writing and status -- Conclusion: Writing empire through material culture.

Call Number

JFF 18-1162

ISBN

• 9781108418058
• 1108418058

LCCN

2017022408

OCLC

986845705

Author

Eckardt, Hella, author.

Title

Writing and power in the Roman world : literacies and material culture / Hella Eckardt, University of Reading.

Publisher

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Copyright Date

©2018

Type of Content

text

still image

cartographic image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-260) and index.

Other Form:

ebook version : 9781108515825

Research Call Number

JFF 18-1162