13. Orphism: The Whole Created of Fragments - The –ism and the Formation of Religious Categories
Thinking with J. Z. Smith - Mapping Methods in the Study of Religion - Barbara Krawcowicz
Lech Trzcionkowski [+ ]
Jagiellonian University, Cracow
Lech Trzcionkowski is a Professor of the History of Religions at the Institute for the Study of Religion, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland. He has widely published on Greek religion and mythology, Orphism and Plutarch. His latest publications include ‘Hieroi Logoi in 24. rhapsodies. Orphic Codex?’ in: Praying and Contempling. Religious and Philosophical Interactions in Late Antiquity, Ed. by Eleni Pachoumi and Mark Edwards, Mohr Siebeck 2018; ‘Collecting the dismembered poet: the interplay between the whole and fragments in the reconstruction of Orphism’, in: Fragments, holes and wholes: reconstructing the ancient world in the theory and practice, ed. Derda Tomasz, Hilder Jennifer, Kwapisz Jan, Warsaw 2017
Description
Lech Trzcionkowski, builds on Smith’s reflection on classification, taxonomy, and comparison to investigate the genealogy of “Orphism”—a name ostensibly referring to a Hellenistic mystery religion. Trzcionkowski traces the history of the term created in the 19th century in an atmosphere of a quest for deeper spirituality and purporting to refer to a kind of pagan mystique church The concept, he points out, was built on arguments used in the polemics between Catholic and Protestant scholars and, as with other –ism formations, suggests a whole that actually never existed, but was created out of existing fragments.