Inbar Graiver

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | HU Berlin · Theological Faculty

Religious conversion involves changes in the convert’s way of thinking and behaving. This paper focuses on the unique form that this transformative process took within the Christian monastic movement in late antiquity. Treating monastic conversion as a gradual process in which the convert is an active participant, it examines the ways in which mona...

Whereas a soul and body dualism has proven too simple a model by which to understand early monastic notions of selfhood, a distinction between ideal or normative selfhood and the constitution of embodied selves can lend an important insight into the ways in which such notions were formed and employed in late antiquity. This paper seeks to probe ear...

The period of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, known as late antiquity, gave rise to some of the elements that have since constituted the identity of the Western self, alongside new lines of psychological investigation. This paper seeks to show that these developments constitute an important stage in the history of Western ps...

While languages vary enormously in the way in which thinking is grammaticalized and how it figures in discourse, "think" appears to be a universal linguistic concept. Linguistic interpretations of this basic human activity can thus provide an important source of evidence for uncovering conceptual systems. Accordingly, this paper analyzes linguistic...

This paper reconstructs from the literary evidence of eastern monasticism the problems and challenges that late antique monks faced in their effort to cultivate a continual attentiveness (προσοχή, νῆψις). Drawing on cognitive research of attention, I argue that misuses of the spiritual method of attentiveness could serve as the source of these prob...

Late antique monks were constantly besieged by demons. This article seeks to gain an insight into the reality behind monastic accounts of this demonically-induced psychological state, characterized by an uncontrollable preoccupation with demonically-inspired thoughts. This distressful experience is depicted in early monastic sources by using Greek...

While languages vary enormously in the way in which thinking is grammaticalized and how it figures in discourse, "think" appears to be a universal linguistic concept. Linguistic interpretations of this basic human activity can thus provide an important source of evidence for uncovering conceptual systems. Accordingly, this paper analyzes linguistic...

Demoncally-induced obsession in Late Antiquity

המשפחה הנזירית בשלהי העת העתיקה

Conference Presentation: Inter-Disciplinary Conference on Emotion