New Perspectives on Ancient Greek REligion Book Series
Published by Edinburgh University Press
The study of ancient Greek religion stands at a critical methodological juncture. While foundational frameworks like the polis-religion model have yielded valuable insights, recent scholarly developments demand more sophisticated theoretical approaches. The past decade has witnessed a flourishing of research at the intersection of cognitive science, sensory studies, and material culture approaches to religious practice. However, these innovative methodological perspectives remain dispersed across various journals, edited volumes, and monographs, lacking a dedicated scholarly forum for sustained theoretical development. Moreover, whilst these theoretical frameworks have been productively applied to Roman religious practices, their deployment in ancient Greek contexts remains comparatively limited, creating an opportunity to develop fresh methodological perspectives on the Greek religious landscape. This series responds to three urgent scholarly imperatives:
A distinctive contribution of the series lies in its commitment to methodological integration. Rather than treating cognitive, sensory, and material, and other approaches as separate analytical frameworks, volumes in this series will demonstrate how these perspectives can work in concert to illuminate different dimensions of Greek religious experience. This integrated approach will enable fresh insights into well-documented phenomena while providing robust theoretical foundations for investigating previously overlooked aspects of ancient religious practice.
Drawing upon the established network of the New Perspectives on Ancient Greek Religion Collaborative Working Group (https://www.npagr.info/), the series will benefit from an active community of scholars – spanning a range of institutions, countries and career stages – engaged in developing relevant theoretical approaches. Alongside this we are actively seeking proposal from scholars outside the Working Group. This ensures that the series will benefit from a range of perspectives, voices, and theoretical approaches not currently covered by members of the Working Group. While the Working Group is a platform for collaborative research and engagement, we are committed to including authors from outside the group to ensure the aims of the series, including a wide theoretical and methodological scope, are maintained and promoted. This ensures the series represents cutting-edge methodological innovation while maintaining rigorous scholarly standards through the collaborative development of ideas and a review process in line with the COPE guidelines for ethical publication practices.
This series aims to transform scholarly understanding of ancient Greek religious practice by establishing new paradigms for investigating how material culture, sensory experience, and cognitive processes shaped ritual encounters between mortals and immortals. Through careful integration of theoretical frameworks drawn from cognitive science, sensory archaeology, and material religion, its volumes will illuminate the embodied and material dimensions of Greek religious life whilst developing sophisticated analytical approaches that move beyond traditional methodologies.
The series advances the scholarly proposition that understanding ancient Greek religious practice requires simultaneous engagement with multiple theoretical frameworks, demonstrating how physical encounters with sacred spaces, objects, and rituals shaped religious experience in ways that transcend institutional structures and textual representations. This methodological sophistication manifests through careful integration of material culture analysis examining divine-mortal interactions, sensory archaeology approaches investigating embodied dimensions of ritual practice, and cognitive frameworks illuminating how religious experiences shaped and were shaped by mental processes. By incorporating spatial analysis of sanctuary architecture and sacred landscapes alongside contemporary theoretical perspectives on materiality and embodiment, volumes in the series offer fresh insights into well-documented phenomena whilst providing robust frameworks for investigating previously overlooked aspects of Greek religious practice.
Central to the series’ mission is its commitment to challenging traditional interpretative frameworks through:
Through this methodologically innovative approach, the series aims to reshape scholarly understanding of ancient Greek religion while establishing new paradigms for its study. Each volume, whether an edited collection or monograph, will contribute to this broader goal while maintaining its distinct focus and methodological approach.
Scope and StructureThe series encompasses a comprehensive temporal and geographical scope whilst maintaining methodological coherence through its innovative theoretical framework. The breadth of coverage enables examination of continuity and change in religious practices across nearly a millennium of Greek cultural development. The geographical and chronological scope of this series encompasses religious practices from the Late Bronze Age through the Hellenistic period, with selective consideration of developments into the Roman era where pertinent to Greek contexts. Whilst maintaining focus on mainland Greece and the Aegean, the series examines regional variations in cult practice, religious networks across the Mediterranean, and cultural exchange in frontier zones, enabling analysis of both local specificity and broader patterns of religious practice.
While maintaining a core focus on mainland Greece and the Aegean, the series will also consider:
This geographical range enables examination of both local specificity and broader patterns of religious practice across the communities of ancient Greece.
The series will publish work which fits into the chronographic scope spanning from the Late Bronze Age through the Hellenistic period and works which cover the Roman period provided the main geographical coverage is Greek. This will enable examination of (for example):
This extensive chronological scope facilitates analysis of both continuity and innovation in religious practice, whilst remaining attentive to specific historical contexts.
If you are interested in submitting a proposal, or would like to discuss the aims of the series further, please do not hesitate to contact the series editors:
Susan Deacy
Ellie Mackin Roberts
Ben Cassell
The study of ancient Greek religion stands at a critical methodological juncture. While foundational frameworks like the polis-religion model have yielded valuable insights, recent scholarly developments demand more sophisticated theoretical approaches. The past decade has witnessed a flourishing of research at the intersection of cognitive science, sensory studies, and material culture approaches to religious practice. However, these innovative methodological perspectives remain dispersed across various journals, edited volumes, and monographs, lacking a dedicated scholarly forum for sustained theoretical development. Moreover, whilst these theoretical frameworks have been productively applied to Roman religious practices, their deployment in ancient Greek contexts remains comparatively limited, creating an opportunity to develop fresh methodological perspectives on the Greek religious landscape. This series responds to three urgent scholarly imperatives:
- It provides an intellectual home for research that moves beyond traditional text-based analyses to examine how material encounters and embodied experiences shaped religious practice;
- it creates a unified platform for dialogue between established theoretical frameworks and emerging methodological approaches, particularly in cognitive studies of ritual and sensory archaeology;
- it addresses the current fragmentation of scholarship across multiple disciplines and publishers, offering a coherent space for developing new theoretical paradigms in ancient religious studies.
A distinctive contribution of the series lies in its commitment to methodological integration. Rather than treating cognitive, sensory, and material, and other approaches as separate analytical frameworks, volumes in this series will demonstrate how these perspectives can work in concert to illuminate different dimensions of Greek religious experience. This integrated approach will enable fresh insights into well-documented phenomena while providing robust theoretical foundations for investigating previously overlooked aspects of ancient religious practice.
Drawing upon the established network of the New Perspectives on Ancient Greek Religion Collaborative Working Group (https://www.npagr.info/), the series will benefit from an active community of scholars – spanning a range of institutions, countries and career stages – engaged in developing relevant theoretical approaches. Alongside this we are actively seeking proposal from scholars outside the Working Group. This ensures that the series will benefit from a range of perspectives, voices, and theoretical approaches not currently covered by members of the Working Group. While the Working Group is a platform for collaborative research and engagement, we are committed to including authors from outside the group to ensure the aims of the series, including a wide theoretical and methodological scope, are maintained and promoted. This ensures the series represents cutting-edge methodological innovation while maintaining rigorous scholarly standards through the collaborative development of ideas and a review process in line with the COPE guidelines for ethical publication practices.
This series aims to transform scholarly understanding of ancient Greek religious practice by establishing new paradigms for investigating how material culture, sensory experience, and cognitive processes shaped ritual encounters between mortals and immortals. Through careful integration of theoretical frameworks drawn from cognitive science, sensory archaeology, and material religion, its volumes will illuminate the embodied and material dimensions of Greek religious life whilst developing sophisticated analytical approaches that move beyond traditional methodologies.
The series advances the scholarly proposition that understanding ancient Greek religious practice requires simultaneous engagement with multiple theoretical frameworks, demonstrating how physical encounters with sacred spaces, objects, and rituals shaped religious experience in ways that transcend institutional structures and textual representations. This methodological sophistication manifests through careful integration of material culture analysis examining divine-mortal interactions, sensory archaeology approaches investigating embodied dimensions of ritual practice, and cognitive frameworks illuminating how religious experiences shaped and were shaped by mental processes. By incorporating spatial analysis of sanctuary architecture and sacred landscapes alongside contemporary theoretical perspectives on materiality and embodiment, volumes in the series offer fresh insights into well-documented phenomena whilst providing robust frameworks for investigating previously overlooked aspects of Greek religious practice.
Central to the series’ mission is its commitment to challenging traditional interpretative frameworks through:
- integration of cognitive science approaches to ritual and religious experience;
- analysis of sensory and embodied dimensions of religious practice;
- examination of material culture's active role in mediating human-divine interactions;
- investigation of individual religious experiences within broader social contexts;
- consideration of non-textual evidence in reconstructing religious practices.
Through this methodologically innovative approach, the series aims to reshape scholarly understanding of ancient Greek religion while establishing new paradigms for its study. Each volume, whether an edited collection or monograph, will contribute to this broader goal while maintaining its distinct focus and methodological approach.
Scope and StructureThe series encompasses a comprehensive temporal and geographical scope whilst maintaining methodological coherence through its innovative theoretical framework. The breadth of coverage enables examination of continuity and change in religious practices across nearly a millennium of Greek cultural development. The geographical and chronological scope of this series encompasses religious practices from the Late Bronze Age through the Hellenistic period, with selective consideration of developments into the Roman era where pertinent to Greek contexts. Whilst maintaining focus on mainland Greece and the Aegean, the series examines regional variations in cult practice, religious networks across the Mediterranean, and cultural exchange in frontier zones, enabling analysis of both local specificity and broader patterns of religious practice.
While maintaining a core focus on mainland Greece and the Aegean, the series will also consider:
- regional variations in cult practice;
- interface between local and Panhellenic traditions;
- religious networks across the Mediterranean;
- cultural exchange in frontier zones;
- specific regional case studies that illuminate broader patterns.
This geographical range enables examination of both local specificity and broader patterns of religious practice across the communities of ancient Greece.
The series will publish work which fits into the chronographic scope spanning from the Late Bronze Age through the Hellenistic period and works which cover the Roman period provided the main geographical coverage is Greek. This will enable examination of (for example):
- Mycenaean religious practices and their material remains;
- development of sanctuary sites from the Early Iron Age;
- emergence and evolution of polis-based cult activity;
- transformation of religious practices in the Hellenistic world;
- diachronic changes in ritual behaviour and material engagement
This extensive chronological scope facilitates analysis of both continuity and innovation in religious practice, whilst remaining attentive to specific historical contexts.
If you are interested in submitting a proposal, or would like to discuss the aims of the series further, please do not hesitate to contact the series editors:
Susan Deacy
Ellie Mackin Roberts
Ben Cassell
