Julia Doroszewska | University of Warsaw (original) (raw)
Papers by Julia Doroszewska
The Oxford Handbook of Monsters in Classical Myth, ed. by Debbie Felton, OUP, 2024
Storyworlds in Short Narratives Approaches to Late Antique and Early Byzantine Tales, eds: Stavroula Constantinou and Andria Andreou, Brill, 2024
This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.
Interacting with Saints in the Late Antique and Medieval Worlds, ed. by Robert Wiśniewski, Raymond Van Dam, and Bryan Ward-Perkins (Brepols: Turnhout), 2023
This chapter examines the literary portrayals of the protagonists of two late antique miracle col... more This chapter examines the literary portrayals of the protagonists of two late antique miracle collections: the 5th- century Miracles of Thekla (BHG 1718) and the 7th-century Miracles of Artemios (BHG 173–173c). It argues that the eponymous saints in their posthumous existence are represented as liminal beings, ontologically situated between God and ordinary humans. The aim of the article is to answer the question of how this saintly in-between status is negotiated, through a close analysis of the means used by hagiographers. Among these means are the ekphrastic descriptions of the saints' appearance, combining both human and divine qualities, as well as the ambiguous status of their apparitions, which are either corporeal or incorporeal visions, and are once dream-like and once waking ones, the use of disguises and tricks often employed by the saints during their interventions, and the time and place of their epiphanies, which also have liminal qualities.
American Journal of Philology, 143.1, 2022
In: D. Felton, A.E. Duggan (anthology editor), A Cultural History of Fairy Tales. Vol. 1: Antiquity (New York: Bloomsbury), 131-148, 2021
Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies , 2019
Imagining the Afterlife in the Ancient World, ed. by Juliette Harrisson, Routledge, 2019
Wzory kultury antycznej. Reguły zachowania starożytnych Greków i Rzymian, red. J. Doroszewska, M. Job., T. Sapota, Katowice, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 2018
Landscapes of Dread in Classical Antiquity Negative Emotion in Natural and Constructed Spaces, 2018
Scripta Classica, 2015
An interesting narrative about a revenant found in the first chapter of the Mirabilia, a collecti... more An interesting narrative about a revenant found in the first chapter of the Mirabilia, a collection of marvelous stories by Phlegon of Tralles (2nd century AD), has been examined and interpreted by many. Scholars usually discussed the narrative’s origin, composition, and style, and
also the vague identity of the main character of the story, a girl by the name of Philinnion, and her affiliation with ghost-lore. No one of them, however, attempted to locate Philinnion within the category
of the restless dead which she seems to belong to, namely, ἄωροι – the prematurely dead. This distinct type of the dead, as is inferred from numerous ancient literary and non-literary sources, was believed to be especially prone to interaction with the living. In this article I attempt to examine the figure of Philinnion in the context of beliefs in the prematurely dead by means of which I hope to better explain crucial problems encountered by modern readers by answering questions regarding Philinnion’s identity and her rationale for returning to the world of the living.
This article explores the potential significance of the suburbs as a liminal space in both ancien... more This article explores the potential significance of the suburbs as a liminal space in both ancient Greek and Roman literature, focusing on literature from the imperial period. It will be demonstrated that in these texts the suburbs recur as a setting of preternatural stories, such as those found in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus, in Lucian's Philopseudes, and in Petronius's Satyricon, as well as in many other loci. In all of them, the "demonic" in various forms operates on the outskirts of town. Such a setting is no coincidence. The suburbs comprise a specific area that both literally and figuratively constitutes the limen of the city, and demons are commonly regarded as liminal beings; hence, by virtue of this symbolic connection, the urban periphery appears as an ideal location for the demonic.
The aim of this paper is to examine the role of sexually ambiguous human individuals in the Mirab... more The aim of this paper is to examine the role of sexually ambiguous human individuals in the Mirabilia by Phlegon of Tralles. The text preserves two curious accounts of the birth of hermaphroditic infants. In antiquity hermaphrodites were usually regarded as maleficent portents which needed a propitiation of the gods; traces of this belief are to be found also in the Mirabilia, since both accounts represent these ‘creatures’ as evil omens. However, in Phlegon’s times hermaphrodites ceased to be considered dangerous and became objects of refined entertainment. I attempt to show that Phlegon, incorporating these particular stories of hermaphrodites into his compilation, plays with the former significance of this phenomenon. First of all, hermaphrodites perfectly fit Phlegon’s collection of marvels, which is focused exclusively on human oddities. But most importantly, he chooses two stories, one of which is strikingly drastic, highly incredible and exceptionally complex in terms of the odd and the bizarre, and the other is reduced to mere quotations from vague and gloomy Sybilline Oracles; in both of them the hermaphrodite is just a part of the sensation and triggers off a sequence of many other extraordinary elements. No longer seen as dangerous, these very special hermaphrodites are used for entertainment purposes providing amusement to the readers by means of shock, astonishment and sensation, along with other ‘freaks of nature’ in the Mirabilia.
Books by Julia Doroszewska
![Research paper thumbnail of Demostenes, Mowy (PWN) [Dem. 20-24, in Polish]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/108026868/thumbnails/1.jpg)
]((eds) Michał Bizoń, Janek Kucharski, Julia Doroszewska, Jakub Filonik
Revenants, oracular heads, hermaphrodites, sex-changers, human-animal children, multiple pregnanc... more Revenants, oracular heads, hermaphrodites, sex-changers, human-animal children, multiple pregnancies, births, body features … This is just a sample of subjects that Phlegon of Tralles explored in the 2nd century AD in his "Mirabilia". This study identifies the common motifs of Phlegon’s text and determines his criterion of selection: using the cultural category of "monster", it argues that Phlegon exclusively collected stories of either hybrid creatures or human "record-breakers" with respect to scale, size and multiplicity of their corporeal features. In this light, the "Mirabilia" appear to be a book on monsters and the monstrous that corresponds with a general fondness for marvels and oddities during the Roman imperial period.
The Oxford Handbook of Monsters in Classical Myth, ed. by Debbie Felton, OUP, 2024
Storyworlds in Short Narratives Approaches to Late Antique and Early Byzantine Tales, eds: Stavroula Constantinou and Andria Andreou, Brill, 2024
This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.
Interacting with Saints in the Late Antique and Medieval Worlds, ed. by Robert Wiśniewski, Raymond Van Dam, and Bryan Ward-Perkins (Brepols: Turnhout), 2023
This chapter examines the literary portrayals of the protagonists of two late antique miracle col... more This chapter examines the literary portrayals of the protagonists of two late antique miracle collections: the 5th- century Miracles of Thekla (BHG 1718) and the 7th-century Miracles of Artemios (BHG 173–173c). It argues that the eponymous saints in their posthumous existence are represented as liminal beings, ontologically situated between God and ordinary humans. The aim of the article is to answer the question of how this saintly in-between status is negotiated, through a close analysis of the means used by hagiographers. Among these means are the ekphrastic descriptions of the saints' appearance, combining both human and divine qualities, as well as the ambiguous status of their apparitions, which are either corporeal or incorporeal visions, and are once dream-like and once waking ones, the use of disguises and tricks often employed by the saints during their interventions, and the time and place of their epiphanies, which also have liminal qualities.
American Journal of Philology, 143.1, 2022
In: D. Felton, A.E. Duggan (anthology editor), A Cultural History of Fairy Tales. Vol. 1: Antiquity (New York: Bloomsbury), 131-148, 2021
Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies , 2019
Imagining the Afterlife in the Ancient World, ed. by Juliette Harrisson, Routledge, 2019
Wzory kultury antycznej. Reguły zachowania starożytnych Greków i Rzymian, red. J. Doroszewska, M. Job., T. Sapota, Katowice, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 2018
Landscapes of Dread in Classical Antiquity Negative Emotion in Natural and Constructed Spaces, 2018
Scripta Classica, 2015
An interesting narrative about a revenant found in the first chapter of the Mirabilia, a collecti... more An interesting narrative about a revenant found in the first chapter of the Mirabilia, a collection of marvelous stories by Phlegon of Tralles (2nd century AD), has been examined and interpreted by many. Scholars usually discussed the narrative’s origin, composition, and style, and
also the vague identity of the main character of the story, a girl by the name of Philinnion, and her affiliation with ghost-lore. No one of them, however, attempted to locate Philinnion within the category
of the restless dead which she seems to belong to, namely, ἄωροι – the prematurely dead. This distinct type of the dead, as is inferred from numerous ancient literary and non-literary sources, was believed to be especially prone to interaction with the living. In this article I attempt to examine the figure of Philinnion in the context of beliefs in the prematurely dead by means of which I hope to better explain crucial problems encountered by modern readers by answering questions regarding Philinnion’s identity and her rationale for returning to the world of the living.
This article explores the potential significance of the suburbs as a liminal space in both ancien... more This article explores the potential significance of the suburbs as a liminal space in both ancient Greek and Roman literature, focusing on literature from the imperial period. It will be demonstrated that in these texts the suburbs recur as a setting of preternatural stories, such as those found in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus, in Lucian's Philopseudes, and in Petronius's Satyricon, as well as in many other loci. In all of them, the "demonic" in various forms operates on the outskirts of town. Such a setting is no coincidence. The suburbs comprise a specific area that both literally and figuratively constitutes the limen of the city, and demons are commonly regarded as liminal beings; hence, by virtue of this symbolic connection, the urban periphery appears as an ideal location for the demonic.
The aim of this paper is to examine the role of sexually ambiguous human individuals in the Mirab... more The aim of this paper is to examine the role of sexually ambiguous human individuals in the Mirabilia by Phlegon of Tralles. The text preserves two curious accounts of the birth of hermaphroditic infants. In antiquity hermaphrodites were usually regarded as maleficent portents which needed a propitiation of the gods; traces of this belief are to be found also in the Mirabilia, since both accounts represent these ‘creatures’ as evil omens. However, in Phlegon’s times hermaphrodites ceased to be considered dangerous and became objects of refined entertainment. I attempt to show that Phlegon, incorporating these particular stories of hermaphrodites into his compilation, plays with the former significance of this phenomenon. First of all, hermaphrodites perfectly fit Phlegon’s collection of marvels, which is focused exclusively on human oddities. But most importantly, he chooses two stories, one of which is strikingly drastic, highly incredible and exceptionally complex in terms of the odd and the bizarre, and the other is reduced to mere quotations from vague and gloomy Sybilline Oracles; in both of them the hermaphrodite is just a part of the sensation and triggers off a sequence of many other extraordinary elements. No longer seen as dangerous, these very special hermaphrodites are used for entertainment purposes providing amusement to the readers by means of shock, astonishment and sensation, along with other ‘freaks of nature’ in the Mirabilia.
(eds) Michał Bizoń, Janek Kucharski, Julia Doroszewska, Jakub Filonik
Revenants, oracular heads, hermaphrodites, sex-changers, human-animal children, multiple pregnanc... more Revenants, oracular heads, hermaphrodites, sex-changers, human-animal children, multiple pregnancies, births, body features … This is just a sample of subjects that Phlegon of Tralles explored in the 2nd century AD in his "Mirabilia". This study identifies the common motifs of Phlegon’s text and determines his criterion of selection: using the cultural category of "monster", it argues that Phlegon exclusively collected stories of either hybrid creatures or human "record-breakers" with respect to scale, size and multiplicity of their corporeal features. In this light, the "Mirabilia" appear to be a book on monsters and the monstrous that corresponds with a general fondness for marvels and oddities during the Roman imperial period.
by Robert Wiśniewski, The Cult of Saints, Maria Lidova, Efthymios Rizos, Adam Łajtar, Konstantin Klein, Aaltje Hidding, Olga Špehar, Anna Lampadaridi, András Handl, Julia Doroszewska, and Marlena Whiting
Full programme now available: http://cslaconference.ihuw.pl/
10-15/07/2018, 2018
In my paper I would like to highlight the significance of the liminal space within the genre of a... more In my paper I would like to highlight the significance of the liminal space within the genre of ancient novel. The case study will be Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. I shall argue that liminality is a compositional principle in this work, deployed deliberately in order to emphasize its central theme: the story of the protagonist’s extended metamorphosis, which is itself a literary representation of the liminal phase. By liminality I mean the anthropological concept formulated by A. Van Gennep and V. Turner, related to the transitory phase of a rite of passage which, as shown by these scholars, usually takes place in a specific space located outside the civilized world or on its margins.
This is exactly the case of the Metamorphoses, as I will attempt to show. The novel abounds in liminal landscapes, comprising both natural borders (which are liminal by definition), and conventional boundaries, artificially constructed by humans; it also features prominently spaces marked with ambiguous, topsy-turvy attributes, emphasizing their chaotic, marginal or interstructural nature, in which social norms are either subverted or questioned. To name but a few such places: the witch’s house in the suburbs and the threshold of its door (Met. 1.21-23 and further), the creepy inn, the marshes and the stream (1.6-19), the fiendish mill (9.11-31), the robbers’ hideout (4.6-7.13), the grove of the monster devouring humans (8.19-21), the horrendous wretched house (8.22); the sea shore and the Corinthian port in Cenchreae (Met. 11), etc.
I argue that spaces such as these were vested with considerable symbolic value, the key to which is found precisely in the concept of liminality. Since the recent scholarship on this particular problem seems insufficient, a close reading focused on liminality and particularly on its spatial aspect may thus significantly enrich our understanding of the text, not only of Apuleius, but of other ancient novels as well.
In my paper I would like to explore the role of sight (opsis) in Plutarch’s treatise On Curiosity... more In my paper I would like to explore the role of sight (opsis) in Plutarch’s treatise On Curiosity (Peri polypragmosynēs). I shall argue that the busybody (polypragmōn) is depicted by Plutarch as a spectator (theatēs) who desires to pry into the affairs of others by watching their secrets that are described as the spectacle (theama).
Sight and seeing serve as a thematic preoccupation in On Curiosity, and therefore provide a complex cluster of vocabulary and phraseology concerning visual perception; apart from the numerous literal terms (such as the verbs theasthai, blepein, oran and their cognates), one finds there in abundance various suggestive metaphors, comparisons and anecdotes related to these issues, among which a particularly intriguing phenomenon is the figurative use of the house, windows and doors. The latter two play a prominent role as transitional places that lead simultaneously to and from the house interior, and this particular aspect enables comparing them to human eyes which also function as a passage to and from the soul. However, as such windows and doors may be viewed as the weak points of the house, since they are vulnerable to external influences such as someone’s curious gaze. Similarly the eyes are both powerful and feeble, active and passive: the viewer, especially the meddlesome one, can penetrate and dominate the view, but the view can also reciprocally captivate the viewer and deprive him of his self-control and will. This paradox of the eye is underpinned by a blend of ancient conceptions of sight, especially by the amalgam of both the so-called extra- and intro-mission theories.
I will attempt to show that Plutarch, discussing the vice of meddlesomeness, engages in the ancient philosophical and popular discourse on sight and vision. This interdiscursivity works for Plutarch’s educational goal: the danger that lies in the paradox of the eye grants much of a persuasive power to his argumentation.
In the famous story found in Philostratus (VA 4.25) a young philosopher Menippus on his way alone... more In the famous story found in Philostratus (VA 4.25) a young philosopher Menippus on his way alone from Corinth to the port of Cenchreae meets a foreign beautiful woman who claims to be in love with him and invites him to her suburban estate. The woman, eventually exposed by Apollonius of Tyana, turns out to be one of the empousai and her luxury house a mere delusion. In my paper I would like to argue that placing the action of the story in the proasteion is no coincidence. The suburbs, both literally and figuratively, constitute the limen of the city, whereas demons are commonly regarded as liminal beings. In ancient culture, therefore, all liminal spaces and demons gravitated inevitably toward each other and this is reflected also in the VA. Interesting parallels are to be found in Petronius’ Satyricon (61-62) and Lucian’s Philopseudes (30-31): in the former a transformation of a man into a werewolf has its place in the periurban area at the roadside cemetery; the latter tells a story about a haunted house that is set again in the Corinthian suburb called Kraneion.
I would like to argue that even if the suburbs do not form such a well-established topos as e.g. the locus amoenus, they apparently happen to be the setting of ghost stories. I am going to explore their potential meaning as a liminal space from the anthropological and narratological perspective. I will attempt to argue that the suburb which by definition is a transitional, marginal and in many ways ambiguous space, hence is susceptible to demonic operations.
A peculiar practice, passingly alluded to in Greek tragedy (A. Cho. 439-40; S. El. 444-45) and ap... more A peculiar practice, passingly alluded to in Greek tragedy (A. Cho. 439-40; S. El. 444-45) and apparently described in Apollonius’ Argonautica (4.477-79) – the maschalismos remains an enigma for scholars, since the very term does not provide any hint of its nature and meaning. It was likely equally mysterious for ancient and byzantine scholiasts and lexicographers who made it into a practice far more bizarre. They explained it as a form of ritual mutilation of the corpse that was to consist in cutting off its extremities, especially its hands and feet and sometimes also the nose, the ears and the genitals, and tying them in a curious fashion around its neck and under the armpits (maschalai). Subject to it were victims of violent death, and the rationale behind it was that mutilation rendered the deceased powerless in his quest for revenge from beyond the grave. Since, according to modern studies the verb maschalizein occurring in Greek tragedy may very well have signified simply hacking off the arms from the armpits, the rationale behind the explanation provided by the scholiasts (and Aristophanes) remains a curiosity, and therefore in this paper we wish to explore the possible basis thereof. We would like to argue that the ritual has been transformed into a purely magical one, possibly due to its association with the belief in the power of the violently dead (biaiothanatoi) that were considered to be particularly suitable for magic purposes (Iles-Johnston). Also, there is good evidence for the practice of binding both hands and legs as documented by the specimens of “voodoo” dolls used in ancient Greek magic (Faraone). Last but not least, the formulaic association of both hands and legs with revenge, as seen in e.g. the Amphictyonic oath (Aesch. 2.115; 3.109, 120) or in the description of the Erinys (S. El. 489) may account for the particular attention given to these body parts in the traditional explanation of the maschalismos.
http://historia.uw.edu.pl/epiphanies/
Late-antique Christianity hails 'the rise of the holy man', to paraphrase the title of Peter Brow... more Late-antique Christianity hails 'the rise of the holy man', to paraphrase the title of Peter Brown's seminal work. This new social and religious phenomenon implies the appearance of figures who are believed to be specially chosen by God. The holy men play a crucial role in the religious imagination of the people of those times. As the 'servants' or 'friends, of God', they occupy an intermediate position between Him and the ordinary man: this is what determines and defines their holiness. Yet, this liminal status renders them the 'arbiters of ambiguity', to refer again to Peter Brown: holy men and saints need to operate between the spiritual world and this world. The question thus arises how is their in-between holy position negotiated; what is it that distinguishes them from the material world on the one hand and from the divine realm on the other.
The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity project is a major 5-year ERC-funded research project, based... more The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity project is a major 5-year ERC-funded research project, based primarily in Oxford, supported by a team in Warsaw. The project is mapping the cult of saints as a system of beliefs and practices in its earliest and most fluid form, from its origins until around AD 700. Central to the project is a searchable database, in which all the literary, epigraphic, papyrological and documentary evidence for the cult of saints is being collected, whether in Armenian, Coptic, Georgian, Greek, Latin or Syriac. This database, which is continuously being added to, can already be accessed using this link: http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk. On 27-29 September 2018 we are organising a final conference in Warsaw, before the project closes at the end of the year. The topic of the conference is as broad as the project – the cult of saints in Late Antiquity. What we hope to achieve is a broad picture of this phenomenon, and so, although we will welcome papers studying the cult of a specific saint, cultic activity or region, saints or regions, we will give priority to those that set cults and cult practices against the wide background of cultic behaviour and belief, now readily accessible through our database (already operational and filling up fast). Among the confirmed keynote speakers we will have Those interested in presenting papers are requested to send title and short abstract (c. 100 words) to Robert Wiśniewski (r.wisniewski@uw.edu.pl) by 20 April 2018. There is no registration fee, but please, note, we won't be able to cover travel and accommodation expenses.
by The Cult of Saints, Efthymios Rizos, Sergey Minov, Nikoloz Aleksidze, Paweł Nowakowski, Robert Wiśniewski, Theo Maarten van Lint, Matthieu Pignot, Marta Szada, Arietta Papaconstantinou, Julia Doroszewska, and Marijana Vukovic
A part of our database material is now available for consultation. Please, visit our website and ... more A part of our database material is now available for consultation. Please, visit our website and use the database!
The project aims to answer the question of what and how the ancient Greeks of the early Roman imp... more The project aims to answer the question of what and how the ancient Greeks of the early Roman imperial period (1st/2nd c. CE) thought about functioning of the human mind. The reconstruction of their conceptualization of human cognitive abilities is crucial for our understanding of their mentality, and, by extension, the organization of their social world. Mentality, i.e. a collective thought of a society (Lakoff & Johnson 1999), informs various social phenomena – beliefs, values, theories, practices and institutions – and is reciprocally informed by them. The results of the project will thus give us an insight into the ancient mind caught at a specific historical moment. The imperial period brought many important authors, with Plutarch as one of its most prominent representatives. His immense literary output will serve as our source material for the reconstruction of the imperial Greek mentality. Based on a single author of a highly diverse body of texts, we will obtain a vast and simultaneously coherent picture of the ancient mind in action.
These research goals will be achieved by the application of methods of cognitive linguistics which are still a novelty in historical analyses. Relying on the conceptual theory of metaphor (CTM) we will examine metaphors related to cognition in the corpus of Plutarch’s Moralia and Lives. Cognition is here an umbrella term that encompasses a wide range of mental activities including: learning, acquiring knowledge, understanding, memorizing, forgetting, and the like (hereafter referred to as “categories of thinking” or CTh). The project will identify the metaphorical linguistic expressions in these writings and will survey how the CTh were described and conceptualized through them. From that kind of linguistic evidence, it will be possible to reconstruct popular cognitive models (hereafter “folk models”) that capture how people’s perception and thoughts influence the way they feel and behave in a specific cultural environment of a given historical period.
Project funded by National Reserach Centre in Poland, 2019
The project focuses on how the apparitions of Christian saints were represented in Greek literatu... more The project focuses on how the apparitions of Christian saints were represented in Greek literature from the 3rd to the 7th centuries AD. Its aim is to analyze cultural underpinnings of these descriptions. The most abundant and interesting material for this study is to be found in the literary genre known as the miracula, i.e. miracle collections. Along with other literary texts, these sources are used in an attempt to reconstruct the religious mentality of the period commonly referred to as Late Antiquity. Of particular interest here are the miracle collections of Saint Artemios, of Saint Theodore the Recruit, as well as those of Cosmas and Damian, and Cyrus and John. Far from the image of heroic martyrs, known from the early Christian martyrdoms on the one hand, and from the noble figures of modern saints, more attuned to our sense of esthetics, on the other, the saints in late-antique miracle collections happen to be militant, eccentric, playful, and frivolous. They are overall endowed with lively and dynamic personalities. Likewise, their modus operandi reflects their nature. They tend to perform miracles in a very spectacular way which often implies that their epiphanies are disguised and the instructions they give to their followers are odd, ambiguous, and seemingly deceitful. These ‘playful’ epiphanies which make us think of the saints as tricksters are of particular interest for this project. The key question, which it aims to answer, is the origin and rationale behind these idiosyncrasies of the saintly epiphanies.