Religious Networks in the Roman Empire: The Spread of New Ideas, explores how new religious ideas were transmitted across the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean world, through network analysis.
New book explores religious ideas of the past
The way different religions succeed or “fail” at various times in the Graeco-Roman world are explored in a new book by graduate Dr Anna Collar.
Anna, who completed her PhD as part of the AHRC-funded Pagan Monotheism in its Intellectual Context project at Exeter in 2008, is also about to start a new Assistant Professorship in Classical Archaeology at the University of Aarhus in Denmark.
Her book, Religious Networks in the Roman Empire: The Spread of New Ideas, explores how new religious ideas were transmitted across the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean world, through network analysis. It is published by Cambridge University Press.
“In the book, I explore three different religious groups,” she said. “These are the military networks behind the spread of the cult of Jupiter Dolichenus in the Roman Empire, the ethnic networks supporting the spread of new ideas about Judaism following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the period of the rabbinic reforms, and the religious networks that underpin the popularity and spread of the cult of Theos Hypsistos.”
In her new role in Denmark, Anna will work on a project exploring pilgrimage and the emergence of sacred travel in the Graeco-Roman world.
Date: 13 March 2014
