Controlling Contested Places
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A01=Christine Shepardson
antakya
Author_Christine Shepardson
Category=NHC
Category=NKD
Category=QRAX
Category=QRM
christian communities
christianity
city of antioch
cultural geography
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
fourth century history
geography
god and religion
history
john chrysostom
late antiquity
late roman empire
libanius
mediterranean world
negotiation of power
physical environment
physical space contests
physical spaces
politics
politics of identity
religious
religious identity
religious orthodoxy
religious orthopraxy
rhetorical space contests
theodoret
topographically sensitive vocabulary
topography
turkey
Product details
- ISBN 9780520280359
- Weight: 590g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 12 Apr 2014
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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From constructing new buildings to describing rival-controlled areas as morally and physically dangerous, leaders in late antiquity fundamentally shaped their physical environment and thus the events that unfolded within it. Controlling Contested Places maps the city of Antioch (Antakya, Turkey) through the topographically sensitive vocabulary of cultural geography, demonstrating the critical role played by physical and rhetorical spatial contests during the tumultuous fourth century. Paying close attention to the manipulation of physical places, Christine Shepardson exposes some of the powerful forces that structured the development of religious orthodoxy and orthopraxy in the late Roman Empire. Theological claims and political support were not the only significant factors in determining which Christian communities gained authority around the Empire. Rather, Antioch's urban and rural places, far from being an inert backdrop against which events transpired, were ever-shifting sites of, and tools for, the negotiation of power, authority, and religious identity.
This book traces the ways in which leaders like John Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Libanius encouraged their audiences to modify their daily behaviors and transform their interpretation of the world (and landscape) around them. Shepardson argues that examples from Antioch were echoed around the Mediterranean world, and similar types of physical and rhetorical manipulations continue to shape the politics of identity and perceptions of religious orthodoxy to this day.
Christine Shepardson is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
