Events Calendar – British School at Athens

Votive relief with Pluto, Persephone and Demeter (4th-3rd cent. B.C.) in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens on 22 July 2018, courtesy of B. Cassell

Upper House Seminar

Ben Cassell (BSA/King’s College London), “The Aiora and Thesmophoria: Cognitve, embodied and psychological approaches”

Abstract: Recent years have seen an increasing application of models derived from the cognitive sciences to the study of ancient religious experience. In particular, specific models are being drawn from the theoretically pluralist field of the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) in order to study of the affective quality of Greek ritual practice from varying perspectives. This paper provides an introduction to this rapidly evolving movement in Classics and Classical Archaeology, touching on the major works, findings and potential new directions that have defined it so far. This will include an examination of the cognitive and embodied impact of two rites: the Thesmophoria and the Aiora. These case studies will illustrate how in applying models derived from the CSR, we are able to provide new insight into how ritual experience would impact its participants, while also moving our understanding of these practices beyond the structuralist-symbolist approaches that have dominated the study of Greek Religion until comparatively recently.

Bio: Ben Cassell is completing his PhD with the Department of Classics, King’s College London and the current R.B. McConnell student with the British School at Athens. His research is focused on the intersection of lived experience and memory in Greek religious practice, including participation in the Interdepartmental Laboratory Memory and Society (University of Trento). The author of various publications, Ben is the editor of two special volumes of the Journal of Cognitive Historiography, the New Perspectives on Ancient Greek Religion book series with Edinburgh University press and an upcoming edition relating to Beautification and Defilement in Greece and Rome. The winner of the G. Grote prize in Ancient History (2024), Ben is currently a serving Council Member with the Hellenic Society.

Hybrid lecture

To attend in-person in Athens, please register HERE

To attend online via webinar, please register HERE