Giuseppina Paola Viscardi

My research focuses on the history of religions in the ancient Mediterranean, particularly the Classical, Hellenistic, and Late Antique periods, adopting an interdisciplinary approach that integrates cultural history, anthropology, philology, communication theory, semiotics, the cognitive science of religion, and performance theories. Particular attention is devoted to the relationship between space, body, language, memory, and identity, as reconstructed through discursive representations and performative practices in the formation and transformation of the religious systems of the ancient world.

A first strand of my research is devoted to the analysis of the configuration of sacred space and religious landscape, with particular reference to Artemisian cults and the network of divine configurations associated with them, in ancient Greece, the Italic world, and areas of Asia Minor affected by processes of colonization and cultural contact. A second strand focuses on forms of religious communication, including practices of dis/closure, ritual performativity, sacrificial violence, and the dynamics underlying the construction of religious authority.

Further lines of research concern the symbolic articulation of mythic-ritual narratives relating to the natural environment, both animal and vegetal, and to geographical space, whether metaphorical or physical, involved in the processes of cultural elaboration of specific worldviews underlying particular religious and social contexts; the role of women and the feminine in dynamics of interaction with superhuman or non-human agencies; the relationship between religion and food culture; the religious dynamics involved in the construction, transmission, and manipulation of cultural memory; forms of identity articulation, structuring, self-definition, and hetero-definition; and the cognitive processes involved in the shaping, transmission, reception, and interpretation of religious representations.

My most recent research also focuses on the intersection between language and religion, variation and transformation in ritual vocabulary, the materiality of religious practices, and the application of cognitive and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of ancient Mediterranean religions.