Title: The houses of Roman Italy, 100 B.C.-A.D. 250: ritual, space, and decoration
Author: Clarke, John R 1945-
Published: University of California Press,  1992
Subjects: Classics | Art and Architecture | Architectural History | Art History
Publisher's Description: In this richly illustrated book, art historian John R. Clarke helps us see the ancient Roman house "with Roman eyes." Clarke presents a range of houses, from tenements to villas, and shows us how enduring patterns of Roman wall decoration tellingly bear the cultural, religious, and social imprints of the people who lived with them.In case studies of seventeen excavated houses, Clarke guides us through four centuries of Roman wall painting, mosaic, and stucco decoration, from the period of the "Four Styles" (100 B.C. to A.D. 79) to the mid- third century. The First Style Samnite House shows its debt to public architecture in its clear integration of public and private spaces. The Villa of Oplontis asserts the extravagant social and cultural climate of the Second Style. Gemlike Third-Style rooms from the House of Lucretius Fronto reflect the refinement and elegance of Augustan tastes. The Vettii brothers' social climbing helps explain the overburdened Fourth-Style decoration of their famous house. And evidence of remodelling leads Clarke to conclude that the House of Jupiter and Ganymede became a gay hotel in the second century.In his emphasis on social and spiritual dimensions, Clarke offers a contribution to Roman art and architectural history that is both original and accessible to the general reader. The book's superb photographs not only support the author's findings but help to preserve an ancient legacy that is fast succumbing to modern deterioration resulting from pollution and vandalism.   [brief]
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Title: Myth, meaning, and memory on Roman sarcophagi 
Author: Koortbojian, Michael
Published: University of California Press,  1995
Subjects: Classics | Art | Art History | Art and Architecture
Publisher's Description: Michael Koortbojian brings a novel approach to his study of the role of Greek mythology in Roman funerary art. He looks at two myths - Aphrodite and Adonis and Selene and Endymion - not only with respect to their appearance on Roman sarcophagi, but also with regard to the myths' significance in the greater fabric of Roman life. Moving beyond the examination of these sarcophagi as artistic achievements, he sets them in their broader historical and social contexts.Remembrance was an important factor in ancient social life and fueled the need for memorials. In helping us to understand the powerful allusions that Greek myths presented for the Romans, and the role of those allusions in preserving the memory of the dead, Koortbojian effectively widens our vision of the ancient world.   [brief]
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Title: Roman honor: the fire in the bones
Author: Barton, Carlin A 1948-
Published: University of California Press,  2001
Subjects: Classics | Ancient History | Classical History | Classical Politics | Classical Religions | Comparative Literature
Publisher's Description: This book is an attempt to coax Roman history closer to the bone, to the breath and matter of the living being. Drawing from a remarkable array of ancient and modern sources, Carlin Barton offers the most complex understanding to date of the emotional and spiritual life of the ancient Romans. Her provocative and original inquiry focuses on the sentiments of honor that shaped the Romans' sense of themselves and their society. Speaking directly to the concerns and curiosities of the contemporary reader, Barton brings Roman society to life, elucidating the complex relation between the inner life of its citizens and its social fabric. Though thoroughly grounded in the ancient writings - especially the work of Seneca, Cicero, and Livy - this book also draws from contemporary theories of the self and social theory to deepen our understanding of ancient Rome. Barton explores the relation between inner desires and social behavior through an evocative analysis of the operation, in Roman society, of contests and ordeals, acts of supplication and confession, and the sense of shame. As she fleshes out Roman physical and psychological life, she particularly sheds new light on the consequential transition from republic to empire as a watershed of Roman social relations. Barton's ability to build productively on both old and new scholarship on Roman history, society, and culture and her imaginative use of a wide range of work in such fields as anthropology, sociology, psychology, modern history, and popular culture will make this book appealing for readers interested in many subjects. This beautifully written work not only generates insight into Roman history, but also uses that insight to bring us to a new understanding of ourselves, our modern codes of honor, and why it is that we think and act the way we do.   [brief]
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Title: Temples and towns in Roman Iberia: the social and architectural dynamics of sanctuary designs from the third century B.C. to the third century A.D
Author: Mierse, William E
Published: University of California Press,  1999
Subjects: Classics | Archaeology | Art and Architecture | Architectural History | Art History
Publisher's Description: This is the first comparative study of Roman architecture on the Iberian peninsula, covering six centuries from the arrival of the Romans in the third century B.C. until the decline of urban life on the peninsula in the third century A.D. During this period, the peninsula became an influential cultural and political region in the Roman world. Iberia supplied writers, politicians, and emperors, a fact acknowledged by Romanists for centuries, though study of the peninsula itself has too often been brushed aside as insignificant and uninteresting. In this book William E. Mierse challenges such a view.By examining in depth the changing forms of temples and their placement within the urban fabric, Mierse shows that architecture on the peninsula displays great variation and unexpected connections. It was never a slavish imitation of an imported model but always a novel experiment. Sometimes the architectural forms are both new and unexpected; in some cases specific prototypes can be seen, but the Iberian form has been significantly altered to suit local needs. What at first may seem a repetition of forms upon closer investigation turns out to be theme and variation. Mierse brings to his quest an impressive learning, including knowledge of several modern and ancient languages and the archaeology of the Roman East, which allows him a unique perspective on the interaction between events and architecture.   [brief]
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Title: Faces of power: Alexander's image and Hellenistic politics
Author: Stewart, Andrew F
Published: University of California Press,  1994
Subjects: Art | Art and Architecture
Publisher's Description: Alexander the Great changed the face of the ancient world. During his life and after his death, his image in works of art exerted an unprecedented influence?on marbles, bronzes, ivories, frescoes, mosaics, coins, medals, even painted pottery and reliefware. Alexander's physiognomy became the most famous in history. But can we really know what meaning lies behind these images?Andrew Stewart demonstrates that these portraits - wildly divergent in character, quality, type, provenance, date, and purpose - actually transmit not so much a likeness of Alexander as a set of carefully crafted clichés that mobilize the notion "Alexander" for diverse ends and diverse audiences. Stewart discusses the portraits as studies in power and his original interpretation of them gives unprecedented fullness and shape to the idea and image called "Alexander."   [brief]
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Title: On Roman time: the codex-calendar of 354 and the rhythms of urban life in late antiquity
Author: Salzman, Michele Renee
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: Classics | Religion | Classical History
Publisher's Description: Because they list all the public holidays and pagan festivals of the age, calendars provide unique insights into the culture and everyday life of ancient Rome. The Codex-Calendar of 354 miraculously survived the Fall of Rome. Although it was subsequently lost, the copies made in the Renaissance remain invaluable documents of Roman society and religion in the years between Constantine's conversion and the fall of the Western Empire.In this richly illustrated book, Michele Renee Salzman establishes that the traditions of Roman art and literature were still very much alive in the mid-fourth century. Going beyond this analysis of precedents and genre, Salzman also studies the Calendar of 354 as a reflection of the world that produced and used it. Her work reveals the continuing importance of pagan festivals and cults in the Christian era and highlights the rise of a respectable aristocratic Christianity that combined pagan and Christian practices. Salzman stresses the key role of the Christian emperors and imperial institutions in supporting pagan rituals. Such policies of accomodation and assimilation resulted in a gradual and relatively peaceful transformation of Rome from a pagan to a Christian capital.   [brief]
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Title: The sound of two hands clapping: the education of a Tibetan Buddhist monk
Author: Dreyfus, Georges B. J
Published: University of California Press,  2003
Subjects: Religion | Buddhism | Tibet | Autobiographies and Biographies | Buddhism
Publisher's Description: A unique insider's account of day-to-day life inside a Tibetan monastery, The Sound of Two Hands Clapping reveals to Western audiences the fascinating details of monastic education. Georges B. J. Dreyfus, the first Westerner to complete the famous Ge-luk curriculum and achieve the distinguished titl . . . [more]
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Title: Alexander the Great and the mystery of the elephant medallions
Author: Holt, Frank Lee
Published: University of California Press,  2003
Subjects: Classics | Classical History | Ancient History | Military History | Art and Architecture
Publisher's Description: To all those who witnessed his extraordinary conquests, from Albania to India, Alexander the Great appeared invincible. How Alexander himself promoted this appearance - how he abetted the belief that he enjoyed divine favor and commanded even the forces of nature against his enemies - is the subject of Frank L. Holt's absorbing book. Solid evidence for the "supernaturalized" Alexander lies in a rare series of medallions that depict the triumphant young king at war against the elephants, archers, and chariots of Rajah Porus of India at the Battle of the Hydaspes River. Recovered from Afghanistan and Iraq in sensational and sometimes perilous circumstances, these ancient artifacts have long animated the modern historical debate about Alexander. Holt's book, the first devoted to the mystery of these ancient medallions, takes us into the history of their discovery and interpretation, into the knowable facts of their manufacture and meaning, and, ultimately, into the king's own psyche and his frightening theology of war. The result is a valuable analysis of Alexander history and myth, a vivid account of numismatics, and a spellbinding look into the age-old mechanics of megalomania.   [brief]
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Title: On her own terms: Annie Montague Alexander and the rise of science in the American West
Author: Stein, Barbara R 1955-
Published: University of California Press,  2001
Subjects: Autobiographies and Biographies | History of Science | Paleontology | California and the West | Women's Studies
Publisher's Description: At a time when women could not vote and very few were involved in the world outside the home, Annie Montague Alexander (1867-1950) was an intrepid explorer, amateur naturalist, skilled markswoman, philanthropist, farmer, and founder and patron of two natural history museums at the University of California, Berkeley. Barbara R. Stein presents a luminous portrait of this remarkable woman, a pioneer who helped shape the world of science in California, yet whose name has been little known until now. Alexander's father founded a Hawaiian sugar empire, and his great wealth afforded his adventurous daughter the opportunity to pursue her many interests. Stein portrays Alexander as a complex, intelligent, woman who--despite her frail appearance--was determined to achieve something with her life. Along with Louise Kellogg, her partner of forty years, Alexander collected thousands of animal, plant, and fossil specimens throughout western North America. Their collections serve as an invaluable record of the flora and fauna that were beginning to disappear as the West succumbed to spiraling population growth, urbanization, and agricultural development. Today at least seventeen taxa are named for Alexander, and several others honor Kellogg, who continued to make field trips after Alexander's death. Alexander's dealings with scientists and her encouragement--and funding--of women to do field research earned her much admiration, even from those with whom she clashed. Stein's extensive use of archival material, including excerpts from correspondence and diaries, allows us to see Annie Alexander as a keen observer of human nature who loved women and believed in their capabilities. Her legacy endures in the fields of zoology and paleontology and also in the lives of women who seek to follow their own star to the fullest degree possible.   [brief]
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Title: Looking at lovemaking: constructions of sexuality in Roman art, 100 B.C.-A.D. 250
Author: Clarke, John R 1945-
Published: University of California Press,  1998
Subjects: Art | Classics | Art and Architecture | Art History | History | Gender Studies
Publisher's Description: What did sex mean to the ancient Romans? In this lavishly illustrated study, John R. Clarke investigates a rich assortment of Roman erotic art to answer this question - and along the way, he reveals a society quite different from our own. Clarke reevaluates our understanding of Roman art and society in a study informed by recent gender and cultural studies, and focusing for the first time on attitudes toward the erotic among both the Roman non-elite and women. This splendid volume is the first study of erotic art and sexuality to set these works - many newly discovered and previously unpublished - in their ancient context and the first to define the differences between modern and ancient concepts of sexuality using clear visual evidence.Roman artists pictured a great range of human sexual activities - far beyond those mentioned in classical literature - including sex between men and women, men and men, women and women, men and boys, threesomes, foursomes, and more. Roman citizens paid artists to decorate expensive objects, such as silver and cameo glass, with scenes of lovemaking. Erotic works were created for and sold to a broad range of consumers, from the elite to the very poor, during a period spanning the first century B.C. through the mid-third century of our era. This erotic art was not hidden away, but was displayed proudly in homes as signs of wealth and luxury. In public spaces, artists often depicted outrageous sexual acrobatics to make people laugh. Looking at Lovemaking depicts a sophisticated, pre-Christian society that placed a high value on sexual pleasure and the art that represented it. Clarke shows how this culture evolved within religious, social, and legal frameworks that were vastly different from our own and contributes an original and controversial chapter to the history of human sexuality.   [brief]
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Title: The eye expanded: life and the arts in Greco-Roman antiquity
Author: Titchener, Frances B 1954-
Published: University of California Press,  1999
Subjects: Classics | Classical History | Classical Literature and Language | Art and Architecture | Classical Politics | Classical Religions | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: Plato and Aristotle both believed that the arts were mimetic creations of the human mind that had the power to influence society. In this they were representative of a widespread consensus in ancient culture. Cultural and political impulses informed the fine arts, and these in turn shaped - and were often intended to shape - the living world. The contributors to this volume, all of whom have been encouraged and inspired by the work of Peter Green, document the interaction between life and the arts that has made art more lively and life more artful in sixteen essays with subjects ranging from antiquity to modern times.With topics ranging from Antigone to D. H. Lawrence and Norman Douglas, and from Bactrian coins to Livy's characterization of women, the scope, the zest, and the scholarship of these essays will illuminate new avenues in our understanding of the relationship between classics and culture, and in our appreciation of both the artistic products that have come down to us and the varieties of life from which they spring.   [brief]
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Title: Final judgments: duty and emotion in Roman wills, 200 B.C.-A.D. 250
Author: Champlin, Edward 1948-
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: Classics | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: Freed from the familial and social obligations incumbent on the living, the Roman testator could craft his will to be a literal "last judgment" on family, friends, and society. The Romans were fascinated by the contents of wills, believing the will to be a mirror of the testator's true character and opinions. The wills offer us a unique view of the individual Roman testator's world. Just as classicists, ancient historians, and legal historians will find a mine of information here, the general reader will be fascinated by the book's lively recounting of last testaments.Who were the testators and what were their motives? Why do family, kin, servants, friends, and community all figure in the will, and how are they treated? What sort of afterlife did the Romans anticipate? By examining wills, the book sets several issues in a new light, offering new interpretations of, or new insights into, subjects as diverse as captatio (inheritance-seeking), the structure of the Roman family, the manumission of slaves, public philanthropy, the afterlife and the relation of subject to emperor.Champlin's principal argument is that a strongly felt "duty of testacy" informed and guided most Romans, a duty to reward or punish all who were important to them, a duty which led them to write their wills early in life and to revise them frequently.   [brief]
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Title: Promoting human wellness: new frontiers for research, practice, and policy 
Author: Jamner, Margaret Schneider
Published: University of California Press,  2001
Subjects: Medicine | Public Policy | Anthropology | Aging | Education
Publisher's Description: This book is a state-of-the-art educational resource on the latest research and public-policy developments in the fields of wellness promotion and disease prevention. Based on award-winning lectures by University of California faculty on nine campuses as part of the Wellness Lectures Program jointly funded by The California Wellness Foundation, Health Net, and the University of California, the volume aims to widen the scope of health care research and policy to promote wellness rather than focus on illness and disease, and to incorporate proactive, interdisciplinary approaches to health care. The volume also contains chapters by distinguished scholars inthe fields of wellness promotion and disease prevention. Many of these articles fall outside the scope of what we conventionally call health promotion, bringing new perspectives to research and policy possibilities. Promoting Human Wellness is organized around core themes such as the importance of disease prevention programs that address multiple health risks, the link between poverty and minority status and disease susceptibility, and the challenge of evaluating health benefits and cost-effectiveness. The articles discuss such timely issues as genetic determinism as a paradigm in wellness promotion, adolescent health promotion and teen pregnancy prevention strategies, racial differences in cancer epidemiology, the California smokers' helpline, strategies for reducing youth violence, HIV/AIDS prevention, domestic violence education and prevention srategies, and the future of women's health research. Presented within the framework of social ecology, several of the chapters in this volume address new ideas and approaches in the wellness field that are only now beginning to be understood such as the social construction of variables including race, class, and gender. Promoting Human Wellness will be essential reading for health practitioners, policymakers, and others seeking to expand the ways we define and achieve health. Keywords: Public health, community health, medicine, nursing, social welfare, health education, health psychology, social ecology, public policy, aging, health promotion.   [brief]
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Title: Peasants and monks in British India 
Author: Pinch, William R 1960-
Published: University of California Press,  1996
Subjects: History | Asian History | South Asia | Postcolonial Studies | Hinduism
Publisher's Description: In this compelling social history, William R. Pinch tackles one of the most important but most neglected fields of the colonial history of India: the relation between monasticism and caste. The highly original inquiry yields rich insights into the central structure and dynamics of Hindu society - insights that are not only of scholarly but also of great political significance.Perhaps no two images are more associated with rural India than the peasant who labors in an oppressive, inflexible social structure and the ascetic monk who denounces worldly concerns. Pinch argues that, contrary to these stereotypes, North India's monks and peasants have not been passive observers of history; they have often been engaged with questions of identity, status, and hierarchy - particularly during the British period. Pinch's work is especially concerned with the ways each group manipulated the rhetoric of religious devotion and caste to further its own agenda for social reform. Although their aims may have been quite different - Ramanandi monastics worked for social equity, while peasants agitated for higher social status - the strategies employed by these two communities shaped the popular political culture of Gangetic north India during and after the struggle for independence from the British.   [brief]
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Title: Fulk Nerra, the neo-Roman consul, 987-1040: a political biography of the Angevin count
Author: Bachrach, Bernard S 1939-
Published: University of California Press,  1993
Subjects: History | Medieval Studies | Medieval History
Publisher's Description: This is the first comprehensive biography of Fulk Nerra, an important medieval ruler, who came to power in his teens and rose to be master in the west of the French Kingdom. Descendant of warriors and administrators who served the French kings, Fulk in turn built the state that provided a foundation for the vast Angevin empire later constructed by his descendants.Bernard Bachrach finds the terms "constructed" and "built" more than metaphorical in relation to Fulk's career. He shows how Fulk and the Angevin counts who followed him based their long-term state building policy on Roman strategies and fortifications described by Vegetius. This creative adaptation of Roman ideas and tactics, according to Bachrach, was the key to Fulk's successful consolidation of political power. Students of medieval and military history will find here a colorful, impressively researched biography.   [brief]
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Title: Imperial ideology and provincial loyalty in the Roman Empire
Author: Ando, Clifford 1969-
Published: University of California Press,  2000
Subjects: Classics | Classical History | Ancient History | Social Theory
Publisher's Description: The Roman empire remains unique. Although Rome claimed to rule the world, it did not. Rather, its uniqueness stems from the culture it created and the loyalty it inspired across an area that stretched from the Tyne to the Euphrates. Moreover, the empire created this culture with a bureaucracy smaller than that of a typical late-twentieth-century research university. In approaching this problem, Clifford Ando does not ask the ever-fashionable question, Why did the Roman empire fall? Rather, he asks, Why did the empire last so long? Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire argues that the longevity of the empire rested not on Roman military power but on a gradually realized consensus that Roman rule was justified. This consensus was itself the product of a complex conversation between the central government and its far-flung peripheries. Ando investigates the mechanisms that sustained this conversation, explores its contribution to the legitimation of Roman power, and reveals as its product the provincial absorption of the forms and content of Roman political and legal discourse. Throughout, his sophisticated and subtle reading is informed by current thinking on social formation by theorists such as Max Weber, Jürgen Habermas, and Pierre Bourdieu.   [brief]
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Title: Public disputation, power, and social order in late antiquity 
Author: Lim, Richard 1963-
Published: University of California Press,  1995
Subjects: Classics | Classical Religions | Religion | Christianity
Publisher's Description: Richard Lim explores the importance of verbal disputation in Late Antiquity, offering a rich socio-historical and cultural examination of the philosophical and theological controversies. He shows how public disputation changed with the advent of Christianity from a means of discovering truth and self-identification to a form of social competition and "winning over" an opponent. He demonstrates how the reception and practice of public debate, like other forms of competition in Late Antiquity, were closely tied to underlying notions of authority, community and social order.   [brief]
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Title: The spiritual quest: transcendence in myth, religion, and science 
Author: Torrance, Robert M. (Robert Mitchell) 1939-
Published: University of California Press,  1994
Subjects: Religion | Indigenous Religions | Cultural Anthropology | Folklore and Mythology | Language and Linguistics | Philosophy | History and Philosophy of Science | Literature
Publisher's Description: Robert Torrance's wide-ranging, innovative study argues that the spiritual quest is rooted in our biological, psychological, linguistic, and social nature. The quest is not, as most have believed, a rare mystical experience, but a frequent expression of our most basic human impulses. Shaman and scientist, medium and poet, prophet and philosopher, all venture forth in quest of visionary truths to transform and renew the world.Yet Torrance is not trying to reduce the quest to an "archetype" or "monomyth." Instead, he presents the full diversity of the quest in the myths and religious practices of tribal peoples throughout the world, from Oceania to India, Africa, Siberia, and especially the Americas. In theorizing about the quest, Torrance draws on thinkers as diverse as Bergson and Piaget, van Gennep and Turner, Pierce and Popper, Freud, Darwin, and Chomsky. This is a book that will expand our knowledge - and awareness - of a fundamental human activity in all its fascinating complexity.   [brief]
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Title: Hegemony to empire: the development of the Roman Imperium in the East from 148 to 62 B.C 
Author: Kallet-Marx, Robert Morstein
Published: University of California Press,  1996
Subjects: Classics | History | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: In one of the most important contributions to the study of Roman imperialism to appear in recent years, Robert Kallet-Marx argues for a less simplistic, more fluid understanding of the evolution of Roman power in the Balkans, Greece, and Asia Minor. He distinguishes between hegemony - the ability of the Romans to command obedience on the basis of a real or implied military threat - and the later phenomenon of empire, demonstrating that Roman imperium was not the result of the sudden imposition of geographically defined provinces or permanent armies. Rather, the integration of the Greek world into a Roman imperial system was a complex process of evolution requiring mutual adaptation by both Romans and Greeks.   [brief]
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Title: The memory of the eyes: pilgrims to living saints in Christian late antiquity
Author: Frank, Georgia 1963-
Published: University of California Press,  2000
Subjects: Religion | Christianity | Classical Religions | Classical History
Publisher's Description: Pilgrims in the deserts of Egypt and the holy land during the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. often reported visiting holy people as part of their tours of holy places. This is the first comprehensive study of pilgrimage to these famous ascetics of late antique Christianity. Through an original analysis of pilgrim writings of this period, Georgia Frank discovers a literary imagination at work, one that both recorded and shaped the experience of pilgrimage to living saints. Taking an important new approach to these texts, Frank finds in them a record of the writers' and readers' spiritual expectations and uses these fresh insights to add substantially to our understanding of the purposes and practices of pilgrimage. Frank focuses in particular on two important and well-known early texts - The History of the Monks in Egypt (ca. 400) and Palladius's The Lausiac History (ca. 420), situating these narratives in their literary, historical, and spiritual contexts. She compares these narratives to exotic travel writing and to tales of otherworldly journeys. Bringing in contemporary theory, she demonstrates the importance of sight as a means of spiritual progress and explores the relation between the function of sight in these narratives and in other expressions of visual piety in late antiquity Christianity, such as the veneration of relics and, eventually, icons. With its unique focus on the sensory dimensions of pilgrimage - especially visuality - this absorbing book widens our understanding of early Christian pilgrims and those who read their accounts. At the same time, it also sheds new light on the relation between religious experience and the senses, on literary representations of visual experience, and on the literature of pious travel.   [brief]
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