Escola Europea de Pensament Lluís Vives

Conference series El mundo clásico en la realidad occidental

Conference

Gods for novices: mysterious cults in Ancient Greece

In charge of    

Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui

Full-time university professor of Greek Philology at the Complutense University of Madrid.

Series coordinator

Marco Antonio Coronel Ramos

Full-time university professor of Classical Philology at the Universitat de València

Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui (Madrid, 1978)

Full-time university professor of Greek Philology at the Complutense University of Madrid. Doctor in Classical Philology and History of Religions, he got trained as a researcher in the Max Planck Institut and at the universities of Harvard, Oxford (Christ Church), Zurich and the Royal College of Spain in Bologna. He has been Fellow from the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC, visiting professor at Toulouse and Cambridge Universities, and director as PI in various research projects from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and from the BBVA Foundation. Author from multiple studies on philosophy, literature, religion, politics and Ancient Greece philosophy, and about the reception of classic culture in the first Christianism and modernity, among others, the books Tradición órfica y cristianismo antiguo (2007), Política de Aristóteles de Juan Ginés de Sepúveda (2013), Sentencias de Focílides (2018), El pensamiento narrativo (2023) y Catábasis: el viaje infernal en la antigüedad (2023).

Summary:

This conference will present the mysterious cults from Ancient Greece, specially those celebrated to honour Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis and in honour of Dionysus in the field of Orphism. The secret surrounding these cults, whose novices were forced to keep, makes it a crucial point to be able to distinguish between what we really know and what we presume, to discern the sources that convey information about them and to place them in their historical and religious context. The rituals that were held, the doctrines which were attributed, and their impact in society, literature and philosophy of ancient times are some of the questions that will be addressed.

Free entry, limited capacity