Interdisciplinary Approaches to Ancient Religious Texts: Neighbourhood Studies as Case

Aim and conceptual framework

The aim of this spring school is to investigate how religion both shaped and was shaped by everyday life in the ancient world. Building on perspectives developed within the study of “lived religion,” which has produced important insights into how individuals enact and experience religion in practice, the course foregrounds the notion of “living neighbourhoods”. In this framework, neighbourhoods are understood not merely as spatial units, but as dynamic environments in which diverse human actors coexist with non-human and divine agents. The interdisciplinary field of neighbourhood studies is relatively recent and can provide a valuable set of conceptual and methodological tools for the study of religion in antiquity and beyond.

Ancient neighborhood environments

In the ancient world, inhabited neighbourhoods were frequently demarcated by physical features such as gates, walls, and alleyways, which were in some cases maintained by residents themselves for reasons of security and social control. Residential zones were often structured around small-scale public spaces, including sacred shrines, crossroads, and open areas where ritual activities and everyday communal practices were performed. Humans did not inhabit these spaces alone: they lived in close proximity to non-human animals and to various divine beings such as gods, evil (?) spirits, and angels. Natural elements – such as rivers, lakes, mountains, trees, and rocks – could likewise form integral components of a neighbourhood’s spatial and religious landscape.

Primary sources and interdisciplinary approaches

A wide range of primary sources – textual, material, visual, and spatial – offer fragmentary and scattered, yet illuminating and potentially ground-breaking evidence concerning ancient neighbourhoods. Spatial, social, and narrative dimensions all contributed to the construction of neighbourhoods, both in their physical configurations and in their imagined or represented forms. Neighbourhoods could acquire distinct reputations, whether positive or negative, that shaped how they were perceived, experienced, and narrated or portrayed in images. With the help of various interdisciplinary concepts and theoretical approaches, such as social geography, archeology or environmental humanities, ancient neighbourhoods can be understood as vividly “alive”, thereby enabling a deeper, rigorous analysis of the range of relationships between gods, humans, non-human animals, and other entities in both past and present contexts.

Call for papers and candidate participation

We invite PhD candidates to present papers that examine religion in the ancient world with particular attention to neighbourhoods. Possible areas of focus include, but are not limited to:

• religious texts,
• material culture,
• landscapes and ruins,
• methodological reflections, and
• broader conceptual or theoretical considerations.

The spring school will offer PhD candidates in religion, theology, and related disciplines a collaborative forum in which early career scholars are invited to reflect critically on their own research, extend their scholarly networks, and engage systematically with the study of ancient religion and neighbourhoods.