Wolfson Institute’s Special Interest Group ‘Belief and Health’
Saturday 11th of January, 14:00-17:00.
St. Chad’s College, 18 North Bailey, Durham, County Durham DH1 3RH.
Buffet lunch, tea and coffee will be served.
All are welcome, but registration via email to Ivana Petrovich by Thursday 9 January is essential. There is no participation fee.
Programme
1. Prof. Yulia Ustinova, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, ‘Combat Stress Disorders and Their Treatment in Ancient Greece’.
Prof. Yulia Ustinova’s research focuses on ancient Greek religion and its role within the society. In addition to historical written and archaeological sources, she made use of a multidisciplinary approach based on the application of results of neuroscience, anthropology, and sociology for the interpretation of historical phenomena. Prof. Ustinova has published books on the cult of Aphrodite, the role of caves in Greek society, and numerous articles on Greek religion and history of medicine. Her current project, “Mania: Altered States of Consciousness and Insanity in Ancient Greece”, is a study of mania in its multifarious manifestations, from mental disorders to manipulation of consciousness in cultic contexts.
2. Chiara Blanco, Durham University, ‘Conceptions of Psyche in Late Antiquity’
Chiara Blanco has an MA from Turin, MA by Research from Durham and is about to start her PhD at Cmbridge University; she is also the author of ‘L’anima-farfalla’ (Pisa 2012) and has special interest in intersection of classics, anthropology and medicine.
3. Ivana and Andrej Petrovic, ‘Belief and Purity of Mind in Greek Religion’
Dr Andrej Petrovic is a senior lecturer in Greek History at the Department of Classics and Ancient History in Durham. He is a specialist in Greek epigraphy and religion and has published a book on the verse-inscriptions attributed to Simonides, co-edited a book on the Archaic and Classical Greek epigram and has published numerous articles on Greek history and religion. Dr Ivana Petrovic is a senior lecturer in Greek literature at the Department of Classics and Ancient History in Durham. She is a specialist in Ancient Greek literature and religion. She has published a book on the Hellenistic cult of Artemis as reflected in poetry, co-edited books on the Roman Triumph and the Archaic and Classical Greek epigram and numerous articles on Greek literature and religion. Ivana and Andrej are currently working on the study of the role of binding in Greek myth and cult. They are also editing a corpus of Greek metrical sacred regulations.
About the Wolfson Research Institute Special Interest Group ‘Belief and Health’: Our SIG is a research cluster within the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing, whose aim will be to bring together Medicine and Humanities, synchronic and diachronic approaches, Theologians and experts in other religious studies, Historians and Anthropologists.