(Re)Negotiating Social Cohesion – Religion and Community in Antiquity (800 BCE–400 CE)
Project description
The Einstein Visiting Fellow project “(Re)Negotiating Social Cohesion – Religion and Community in Antiquity (800 BCE–400 CE)”, generously funded by the Einstein Stiftung/Einstein Foundation Berlin, explores the ambivalent role of religion in social cohesion in Graeco-Roman antiquity: On the one hand, religion can promote social integration by offering shared values and beliefs that influence individual lifestyles and facilitate group-based integration. On the other hand, religion also carries risks of division and conflicts across various domains. The project investigates the significance of religion for social cohesion in ancient societies through a comparative analysis. This includes examining different historical periods and communities, such as, e.g., the Roman Republic, Greek city-states, and communities marked by political upheavals and religious diversity in Late Antiquity. The proposed research project comprises several subprojects that address different aspects and epochs, ranging from democratic processes in ancient Athens to religious conflicts and social cohesion in late antique cities. The project employs discursive approaches to conduct a detailed examination of interactions between structural conditions and actors. This project holds significance beyond historical inquiry as it addresses contemporary debates regarding the social relevance of religion. Studying ancient societies offers insights into mechanisms of social integration and division that are also relevant for understanding modern societies. Moreover, the project’s interdisciplinary nature is emphasized by including sociology, migration research, theology, religious studies, classical archaeology, and philology. In sum, the project provides a deeper understanding of the complex role of religion in social cohesion processes through a detailed and comparative analysis of ancient societies. The findings will contribute to an international discussion in academia and provide insights into the design of social processes in the present.
The individual projects look into these issues more closely by focusing on Classical Athens, the local and global Hellenistic world, late antique cities, Alexandria in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and Rome in the Republican period respectively.
Project members
Prof. Dr. Claudia Tiersch - PI
Dr. Beate Dignas (University of Oxford) - PI and Einstein Visiting Fellow
Rogier E.M. van der Heijden - Postdoc
Individual projects
Evolving as a period of deep political transformation and characterized by huge ethnic and cultural diversity, the Hellenistic world created an unprecedented need for new strategies of negotiating social cohesion on all levels of society. As fundamentally embedded and dynamic, religion offered the potential to support or jeopardize the outcome of such negotiations. So far, scholars have limited their attention to the instrumentalization of this potential by political authorities. In contrast, this study seeks to establish the active role of religion as a guiding and steering principle of processes of political transformation. Such a strong impact of religion can be shown as based in the psychological and social functions of Hellenistic religious practice and experience, which determined the behaviour of actors that strove for social coherence. Religion, in symbolic as well as material terms, was often the central argument that was formulated, and this not in order to 'use' or 'abuse' religion but as premise and language shared by individual and collective identities alike.
The postulated resilience (well beyond a passive survival) and guiding force of religion appear to be grounded in the interplay between its adaptability and its claim for tradition. Therefore, a second focus of the study is the question, how religion fostered social cohesion precisely because it was a stable guarantor of familiar continuity in processes of change. As catalyst and medium of a collective memory it was able to formulate 'tradition' creatively. Continued 'familiarity', in turn, provided the trust that allowed for adaptation and change.
This project draws on Claudia Tiersch’s extensive research on religion in late antique cities, focusing on the complex renegotiation of social cohesion amid the politically and religiously challenging conditions of late antiquity. These conditions were precipitated by conflicting dynamics, such as increased demands from the central state, diminished urban autonomy, and the decline of the curial class. Moreover, the failure of central state institutions to fulfill their duties led to regional disparities and centrifugal forces within the Roman Empire, imposing additional responsibilities on cities. Urban cohesion faced further strains due to religious conflicts, particularly those associated with the rise of Christianity as a novel religious force and its implications for new forms of social integration. The proposed monograph will explore these new processes of negotiating social cohesion, not focusing on the religious-social conflicts of the time but on adapting to the era’s challenging circumstances.
Alexandria, more so than other cities in antiquity, was a hotbed of religious conflicts well before the Constantinian Revolution. One reason was its politically charged ethnic heterogeneity, the effects of which were intensified by the poliIcal transformation processes of the Roman imperial period. This sub-project focuses on the delicate balance between social tensions and cohesion in Hellenistic and Imperial Alexandria. It will investigate this balance by looking at relevant actors, their interests, and the negotiation mechanisms within religious categories. This involves the potential for religiously fueled conflicts, the diverse interests of those involved, and the modalities of intercultural and inter-religious negotiation processes. The study's objective is to add a further dimension to the history of conflict in Alexandria, which recognizes mechanisms for strengthening internal social cohesion.
Activities and communication
Selection:
- Beate Dignas in Podcast #AskDifferent, Episode 44: Religion in der Antike: Kraft für Zusammenhalt oder Quelle von Konflikten?
