Senses, Cognition, and Ritual Experience in the Roman World

How do the senses shape the way we perceive, understand, and remember ritual experiences? This book applies cognitive and sensory approaches to Roman rituals, reconnecting readers with religious experiences as members of an embodied audience. These approaches allow us to move beyond the literate elites to examine broader audiences of diverse individuals, who experienced rituals as participants and/or performers. Case studies of ritual experiences from a variety of places, spaces, and contexts across the Roman world, including polytheistic and Christian rituals, state rituals, private rituals, performances, and processions, demonstrate the dynamic and broad-scale application that cognitive approaches offer for ancient religion, paving the way for future interdisciplinary engagement. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

Blanka Misic is Instructor in Ancient Civilizations at Champlain College Lennoxville. She researches and publishes on cognitive and sensory aspects of religious rituals and was recently awarded the HORIZON EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship at Institut für Klassische Archäologie, Universität Wien.

Abigail Graham is Research Fellow at the Institute of Classical Studies at the University of London and an honorary research fellow at the British School Rome, where she is the founder and coordinator of their Postgraduate Course in Roman Epigraphy. She researches and publishes on cognition, epigraphy, and monumentality in the urban landscape.