Crafting Emotion: The Late Antique Panegyris as Embodied Experience (ca. 330-ca. 500)

EmbPatristics seeks to develop an interdisciplinary model for the study of emotion manipulation in ritual contexts.

To this end, it applies analytical instruments developed across the Historical, Social, and Cognitive Sciences to a particularly well-documented case study, namely the annual celebration of a martyr’s death or ‘martyr panegyris’, as celebrated in Asia Minor (Anatolia) in the 4th and 5th centuries CE.

The experience gained from the analysis is used to develop an adaptable model, with implications for the history of emotion, the history of religion, ritual studies, and the Cognitive Sciences.

In terms of content, EmbPatristics opens the discussion and provides the instruments for further research on the role emotion played in the spread of Christianity among Romans.

Finally, by showing in a comprehensible manner how external stimuli elicit emotional responses, the initiative contributes to contemporary society, where emotion manipulation through media outlets has become increasingly popular in the past years Keeping with the goals of the MSCA, EmbPatristics involves a bidirectional knowledge transfer and the strengthening of European research networks.

The researcher will enrich his expertise in the staging of religious experiences with competences in Patristic text analysis and in the Cognitive Sciences—area of study in which the University of Vienna is the leading European centre—while also improving his scientific networking, communication, and project management skills.

The University of Vienna will have its Cognitive Science research enriched with a new focus—i.e. the study of Patristics from an embodied perspective—housed within the Department of Christian History, Art and Archaeology.