Articles
"The Spread of Non-Natural Concepts - Evidence from the Roman Prodigy Lists", Journal of Cognition and Culture 4.1. 2004: 151-173
The Spread of Non-Natural Concepts - Evidence from the Roman Prodigy Lists
"Traumatic Rites in the Cult of Cybele and Attis - A New Perspective" (Under review for publication in an anthology edited by Luther H. Martin and Panayotis Pachis)
Traumatic Rites in the Cult of Cybele and Attis (draft)
"The conflict over Cicero’s house – an analysis of the ritual element in De Domo Sua" (Numen 52 (4), 2005: 445-464)
Abstract:
According to the Romans themselves ritual was at the heart of their culture.
Strangely, this centrality of ritual has not been matched by a corresponding
sensitivity
to how ritual was to be interpreted. Ritual has most often been viewed as
an empty formalism devoid of any true belief. It is argued in this article that
this
view of ritual is an ethnocentric construct stemming from a Christian conception
of belief, which does not adequately account for the peculiarities of ritual
based
religions. Taking the seemingly obscure and little studied case of the conflict
over Cicero’s house as a case, it is argued that E. Thomas Lawson’s and Robert
N. McCauley’s ritual theory might help to overcome this misconception of ritual.
This enables us to see how Cicero explicates implicit beliefs entailed by the
ritual
actions. Ultimately the evidence seems to support the reverse interpretation:
that ritual was taken very seriously.
The conflict over Cicero's house (pre-print)
Papers for conferences
"The Production of Meaning in Divination" (Paper for the 19th World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions 29th of March 2005)