Sacred Food: Mythology, Ritual and Symbols

Recommended Prerequisites

Not applicable.

Teaching Methods

Lectures and theory classes

Reading and interpreting written and iconographic documents brought to class

Reading and discussion of selected excerpts from the bibliography

Presentation by students of summary works

Student participation and professor-led discussions.

Learning Outcomes

- Acquire a historical overview and perspective on the diversity of religious expressions

- Summarize the essential transversal aspects of the manifestation of the sacred.

- Understand how various religions view food and offer their own perspective on nutrition in their discourse about space, sacred time and identity myths;

- Express how food practices reflect and shape social roles as well as behaviors and identities.

- Analyze historical texts, and theological and mythological sources;

- Compare the function and the types of foods of different religious terminologies, considering aspects like rituals, health, behavior and ethical and ecological concepts.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

Introduction to the study of religion as a field of the humanities

- Religion and food, history and myth: the myths of the relationship between the sacred and food

- Food supply and ritual: sacrifice, sharing, transformation

- Food Ethics and sustainability, yesterday and today: the discourses on what to eat.

Head Lecturer(s)

Paula Cristina Barata Dias

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Other: 30.0%
Research work: 70.0%

Bibliography

Bell, Catherine (1992) Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford University Press.

Burkert, Walter Ancient mystery cults, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1987.

Douglas, Mary (1972) “Deciphering a meal”, Daedalus 10, , pp. 61-81.

________ (1966) (trad. Port. Ed. 70, 1999) Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Taylor.

Dias, P. B. (2008) “A Linguagem dos Alimentos nos textos bíblicos. Sentidos para a fome e para a abundância”, Humanitas 60, pp. 157-175.

_______ 2012. “A comensalidade nas comunidades cristãs primitivas segundo a Primeira Epístola aos Coríntios”. In Candido, Maria Regina, Práticas alimentares no mundo antigo, Rio de Janeiro NEA/UERJ, 215 - 241.

Garnsey P. (1999) Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge University Press.

Harrowven, Jean (1996) Origins of Festivals and Feasts. Whitestable, Kent, England: Pryor Publications.