Abstract
The primary methodology for my research and writing is “bricolage,” based on Levi-Strauss’s definition from his 1966 book The Savage Mind, in which he illuminates how artists ask their materials to yield answers, how to manipulate texts for meaning-making, and as we locate our research path we might discover new questions and modes of creating narratives. Levi-Strauss sees the bricoleur as “engaging in a sort of dialogue…before choosing tools and materials” and if the creative pathways available do not seem promising, the writer will search out others (22). He further emphasizes how, “Art lies half-way between scientific knowledge and mythical or magical thought. It is common knowledge that the artist is both something of a scientist and of a bricoleur. By his craftsmanship he constructs a material object which is also an object of knowledge” (ibid). As a creative writer who engages with visual and material culture to recreate past worlds, I employ material culture and “lived ancient religion” as a methodology to use Rubina Raja and Jorg Rupke’s term, in which the reader feels, on a sensory level, what it’s like to enter, for example, an Asclepian temple at dusk, feel the coolness of the marble against their skin in the abaton where dream incubation occurs, as well as the physical and spiritual thresholds of entering and exiting these sacred spaces, and how this informed the character’s interaction with the divine in an attempt to reconstruct emotional experiences from archeological material.
Presenters
Alexis LandauLecturer, The Writing Program, The University of Southern California, California, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
2025 Special Focus—Fragile Meanings: Vulnerability in the Study of Religions and Spirituality
KEYWORDS
ASCLEPIAN TEMPLES, LATE ANTIQUITY, THE ROMAN EMPIRE, ROMAN EGYPT
