- Legal History, Late Antiquity, Early Medieval History, Classics, Law and Religion, Law and culture, and 63 moreReligion and State, Religion and Politics, History of Religion, Anthropology of Religion, Religious Studies, Ancient Religion, Roman Religion, Early Christianity, Early Church Fathers, Patristics, Late Roman Empire, Shepherd Metaphor, Codex Theodosianus, Lombards, Medieval History, Medieval Studies, Legal Philosophy, Legal Theory, Ritual Theory, Myth and Myth Theory, History of Political Thought, Roman Law, Ancient Philosophy, Ancient Greek Philosophy, Ancient History, Homer, Plato, Greek Tragedy, Pastoral Poetry, Stoicism, Septuagint, Philo of Alexandria, Virgil, New Testament Studies, New Testament, Apostolic Fathers, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, eusebius of Caesarea, Constantine, Roman History, Archaic Greek history, Ancient Greek History, Hellenistic History, History of Psychiatry, History of Mental Illness, Political Theology, Civil Religion, Michel Foucault, Classics and Politics, Reception of Antiquity, Classical reception, Classical Reception Studies, Ruler Cult, Ethnogenesis, Barbarians and Romans in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages, Byzantine Studies, Video Games, Videogames and Philosophy, Game studies, The Last of Us Part II, Torture, and Video Games and Legal Studiesedit
- I am a legal scholar and historian. My research covers ancient and early medieval history, as well as contemporary cu... moreI am a legal scholar and historian. My research covers ancient and early medieval history, as well as contemporary culture. I write about issues of violence, power, discourse, institutions, law & religion, and reception of antiquity.edit
In the present article, I analyze Greek and Latin sources of pre-Nicene Christianity and argue that violence, although generally overlooked, constitutes an intrinsic and significant aspect of the early Christian model of pastoral rule. I... more
In the present article, I analyze Greek and Latin sources of pre-Nicene Christianity and argue that violence, although generally overlooked, constitutes an intrinsic and significant aspect of the early Christian model of pastoral rule. I premise my argument on an understanding of violence that rejects so-called ‘legitimist’ definitions, which subordinate the judgment on violence to a judgment on legitimacy and reserve the label of violence for illegitimate actions alone. Congenitally embedded in a network of conflictual relations, the shepherd of early Christian imagery is primarily tasked with the salvation of the sheep from enemies whose ambiguous identity, I argue, often betrays their provenance from within the flock. The shepherd is also engaged in disciplining his animals through measures that include severe physical punishments and exclusion from the herd. To conclude, I argue that the pastoral metaphor is itself an especially powerful instrument in the discursive construction of legitimate violence. For a relevant strand of ancient thought, to frame a particular institution in terms of the shepherd-flock relationship is, I argue, to conceive of it as replicative of the natural and normative order of reality, while also making certain acts of violence appear as the preferable course of action to be sought in the government of the community.
Research Interests: Violence, Patristics, New Testament, Legal History, Legal Theory, and 10 moreEarly Christianity, Conceptual Metaphor, Legitimacy, Bible, New Testament Studies, Pastoral Ministry, Early Christianity and Philosophy, Early Chuch Fathers, Early Church History, Shepherd Metaphor, and Early Christian Philosophy
Commencing with Homer and throughout the whole of Greco-Roman antiquity, the metaphor of the herdsman is commonly employed by poets and philosophers to qualify gods, kings, magistrates, and all kinds of authority figures and political... more
Commencing with Homer and throughout the whole of Greco-Roman antiquity, the metaphor of the herdsman is commonly employed by poets and philosophers to qualify gods, kings, magistrates, and all kinds of authority figures and political leaders. The aim of this paper is to elucidate the meaning and function of this political figure as it is featured in the works of Virgil. Although the main focus of analysis will be on the Aeneid, a preliminary survey of Virgil’s earlier works shall allow us to understand the values and expectations against which the shepherd of the people and his actions were later to be evaluated, while also presenting us with several figures of nonliteral shepherds in their own right and political significance. The first two sections focus on key passages of the Eclogues and Georgics to argue that the peaceful existence of the agropastoral world, itself a signifier for the whole of human life and deeds, is constructed as subordinate to the soterial and beneficial agency of exceptional figures of shepherds, who are drawn from politics and history into the metaphorical frame of the poems. The remaining sections will suggest that this optimistic perspective, wherein war progresses to peace through the actions of exceptional individuals, is disproved and reversed in the characterization of the metaphorical shepherds of the Aeneid. Rather, the shepherds’ actions are directed toward the destruction of the same pastoral world that Virgil’s earlier poems imagined as existing by virtue of the shepherd’s soterial agency. [From the article's introduction.]
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In this article, which intends to contribute to the growing interest of legal studies in video games, I analyze the representation of torture in The Last of Us Part II, a video game released in 2020. I argue that, in the context of the... more
In this article, which intends to contribute to the growing interest of legal studies in video games, I analyze the representation of torture in The Last of Us Part II, a video game released in 2020. I argue that, in the context of the game’s overall moral argument and generalized interest in the matter of violence, torture holds an exceptional status. This conclusion is brought forward through the in-depth analysis of a particular episode, the torture of Nora, which, I argue, constitutes the lowest point of the protagonist’s moral degeneration in her descent into violence. In my analysis, I also give special consideration to the game’s resonance with events from the United States’ recent history. Through its portrayal of torture, Part II contributes to both the development of the language of the video game medium and public discourse on the subject of torture more generally. I locate three issues in particular that, although successfully addressed by the game, otherwise afflict both the cultural perception of torture and its representation in video games.
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This article seeks to define a theoretical framework for the study of the relation between religion and the political community in the Roman world and to analyze a particular case in point. The first part reviews two prominent theories of... more
This article seeks to define a theoretical framework for the study of the relation between religion and the political community in the Roman world and to analyze a particular case in point. The first part reviews two prominent theories of religion developed in the last fifty years through the combined efforts of anthropologists and classicists, arguing for their complementary contribution to the understanding of religion's political dimension. It also provides an overview of the approaches of recent scholarship to the relation between religion and the Roman polity, contextualizing the efforts of this article toward a theoretical reframing of the political and institutional elements of ancient Christianity. The second part focuses on the religious legislation of the Theodosian Code, with particular emphasis on the laws against the heretics and their performance in the construction of the political community. With their characteristic language of exclusion, these laws signal the persisting overlap between the borders of the political community and the borders of religion, in a manner that one would expect from pre-Christian civic religions. Nevertheless, the political essence of religion did also adapt to the ecumenical dimension of the empire. Indeed, the religious norms of the Code appear to structure a community whose borders tend to be identical to the borders of the whole inhabited world, within which there is no longer room for alternative affiliations; the only possible identity outside this community is that of the insane, not belonging to any political entity and thus unable to possess any right.
Research Interests: Christianity, Patristics, Religion and Politics, Legal History, Roman Law, and 15 moreLaw and Religion, Roman Religion, History of Psychiatry, Ancient Religion, Late Antiquity, Political Theology, Ancient Philosophy, Late Roman Empire, Heresy, Civil Religion, Religious Studies, Religion and State, History of Mental Illness, Codex Theodosianus, and Anthropology of Religion
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Il volume propone una ricostruzione di quel tratto caratteristico della civiltà romano-ellenistica ch'è dato dalla connessione fra la religio e la dimensione della politica e del diritto. Definita l'indole politica dell'esperienza... more
Il volume propone una ricostruzione di quel tratto caratteristico della civiltà romano-ellenistica ch'è dato dalla connessione fra la religio e la dimensione della politica e del diritto. Definita l'indole politica dell'esperienza religiosa nei secoli che vanno dalla protostoria romana fino all'età giulio-claudia, è quindi affrontato il problematico momento della transizione dall'impero pagano all'impero cristiano, attraverso un'analisi che rivela la continuità di concetti, strutture e istituzioni nell'intreccio del publicum con il sacro: particolare attenzione è posta sulla figura di Costantino, sull'intolleranza religiosa e sui rapporti fra imperium e sacerdotium fino al principio del VI secolo. Sullo sfondo della medesima cultura religiosa e giuridica è infine collocato il regno longobardo, quel tardivo beneficiario dell'eredità di Roma che qui appare nondimeno espressione delle medesime linee di continuità istituzionale rispetto al passato romano-ellenistico.
Research Interests: Ancient History, Roman History, History of Religion, Religion and Politics, Hellenistic History, and 15 moreLegal History, Roman Law, Law and Religion, Early Christianity, Roman Religion, Early Medieval History, Ancient Religion, Late Antiquity, History of Political Thought, Late Roman Empire, Reception of Antiquity, Religious Studies, Religion and State, Lombards, and Barbarians and Romans in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages
Research Interests: Ancient History, Classics, Roman History, Greek Tragedy, Hellenistic Philosophy, and 26 morePatristics, New Testament, Hellenistic History, Legal History, Early Christianity, Old Testament, Septuagint, History of Political Thought, Greek Lyric Poetry, Ancient Philosophy, Archaic Greek history, Martyrdom, Ancient Greek History, Ancient Greek Philosophy, Bible, Neopythagoreanism, Constantine, Early Church Fathers, Myth and Myth Theory, Pastoral Poetry, Hellenistic Kingship, New Testament Studies, Apostolic Fathers, Early Christian Martyrs, Anthropology of Religion, and Early Christian Ethics
Review of D. Zuckerberg, Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London 2018, pp. 270
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Review of Emily Katz Anhalt, Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2017, pp. XIV, 268
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Recensione a Luca Loschiavo, L'età del passaggio. All’alba del diritto comune europeo (secoli III-VII), Giappichelli, Torino 2016, pp. XXVI, 262