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.
Blanka's current research builds upon the theoretical model presented in the first chapter of this volume. The Religious Learning Network (RLN) Model merges cognitive science research on learning, autobiographical memory, overimitation, and embodied and situated cognition to provide an insight into how religious rituals were learned, remembered, and transmitted in the Roman Empire, and what cognitive and social effects these rituals may have produced upon the ritual participants.
Blanka Misic is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Classical Archaeology at the University of Vienna and Network Associate at the Vienna Cognitive Science Hub.
Blanka's Brownbag Session is scheduled for 12. March from 12:00 - 13:30 in Seminarraum 17 (Kolingasse 14-16). Register here: https://cogsci.univie.ac.at/activities/brownbag-sessions/registration-for-brownbag-sessions/
