Research Group Ancient Cultures and Cognitive Sciences

Members:

• Beate Pongratz-Leisten, ISAW-NYU, Ancient Near Eastern Studies and Religious Studies
• Barbara Kowalzig, NYU, Classics
• Karen Sonik, UCLA, Art History of the Ancient Near East
• Rita Watson, ISAW-NYU, Cognitive Sciences and Linguistics

Talks:

B. Pongratz-Leisten

• March 2016, ISAW, NYU: Memory, Tradition, and the Process of Image-Making in Mesopotamia

Publications:

B. Pongatz-Leisten

• 2011:  “Divine Agency and Astralization of the Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia,” in Reconsidering Revolutionary Monotheism, ed. B. Pongratz-Leisten (Winona Lake, IN:  Eisenbrauns) 137-187
• in press: “Social Bonding with the Divine,” in Beliefs and Conceptions of the Divine, eds. Barbara Kowalzig & Teresa Morgan

B. Pongratz-Leisten and K. Sonik (eds.)

• 2015 The Materiality of Divine Agency. Berlin and Boston:  De Gruyter
• 2015 “Between Cognition and Culture: Theorizing the Materiality of Divine Agency in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Pp. 3-69 in The Materiality of Divine Agency. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter

B. Kowalzig

• in prep.: “Pistoi theoi:  Anthropomorphism and the Language of Belief in Ancient Greece.”

K. Sonik

• 2013: “The Monster’s Gaze: Vision as Mediator Between Time and Space in the Glyptic Art of Mesopotamia.” Pp. 285-300 in Time and History in the Ancient Near East:  Proceedings of the 56^th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Barcelona. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns
• in prep.: Mesopotamia’s Haunted Universe:  Monsters and Daimons at the Dawn of Civilization

R. Watson

• in prep: “A Cognitive Account of the Origins of Writing.”

R. Watson & W. Horowitz

• 2011: Writing Science before the Greeks. A Naturalistic Analysis of the Babylonian Treatise MUL.APIN (New York:  Brill, 2011)

Workshops:

• 2015: Ritual and Narrative: Texts in Performance in the Ancient Near East
• 2016: The Formation of Cultural Memory: Ancient Mesopotamian Libraries and Schools and their Contribution to the Shaping of Tradition and Identity