Tuesday, October 20, 2020

On ingesting otherworldly substances

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: SBL 2019 Review Panel | Food and Pharmaka (Barbette Stanley Spaeth).
As a classicist, I found most interesting her ideas about the myth of the Rape of Persephone, as told in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and Ovid’s poems the Fasti and Metamorphoses, as well as Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. In this paper, I will indicate some problems with how Warren’s concept of hierophagy plays out in these texts and offer my own ideas on how this concept can be expanded to fit them more accurately.
I noted the essay introducing this series on Dr. Meredith Warren's book, Food and Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Literature here, the first essay here, the second here, and the third here.

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