A Lecture and Video-Conference by Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel, Strasburg University
Thursday, September 28, 2017 4 p.m.-6 p.m. (Paris time) at the Ivry sur Seine CNRS building, 27 rue Paul Bert, Porte de Choisy/Porte d’Ivry subway station, room C in the basement or by distance through video-conference.
Through the prism of bodily perception, a society gives sense to, translates, and interprets its surrounding environment. For more than twenty years, Anthropology of the senses has incited scholars to consider a society through the human body and its sensory dynamic: perception and related concepts may vary from one culture to another, for it is deeply rooted in each system of customs, values and representations. For instance, our western and contemporary societies have been deeply marked by Aristotle’s theoretical model, which is based on five major senses: to see, to hear, to touch, to smell, and to taste.
However, this pentasensory model is not equally relevant for the societies of the Ancient Near East, especially according to the Akkadian texts. How many senses can be identified? Are there aesthetic values associated to specific sensory experiences? What consequences may have a sensory loss for the individual and his relationships to his social and natural environment? Trying to answer these questions, I will investigate Akkadian texts of various nature, focusing on ritual, divination and literary contexts.
This presentation in English constitutes the eleventh monthly session of the interdisciplinary seminar “The Individual and his Body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin” organized by Alice Mouton and supported by the Labex RESMED and the UMR 8167 Orient et Méditerranée.
https://www.orient-mediterranee.com/spip.php?article2958&lang=en
https://www.labex-resmed.fr/l-individu-et-son-corps-dans-le
All persons interested in attending the session (either in Ivry sur Seine or through video-conference) are welcome for free but should register by e-mail beforehand.
contact: mailto:alice.mouton@cnrs.fr
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