PROFESSOR BRAVO WINS RASA SEMESTER AWARD

Professor Bravo received a RASA award from the University of Maryland graduate school for spring 2015. The award will enable Professor Bravo to spend the semester on focused research for a book on ancient Greek funeral games and their relation to...

PROFESSOR BRAVO WINS RASA SEMESTER AWARD

Professor Bravo received a RASA award from the University of Maryland graduate school for spring 2015.  The award will enable Professor Bravo to spend the semester on focused research for a book on ancient Greek funeral games and their relation to the construction of social memory.

His research will explore a surprising but recurrent element in the ancient Greek experience of competition: its association with death, as seen for example in the funeral games of epic heroes as well as later athletic festivals tied to the celebration of mythic heroes. He aims to explore this phenomenon in the light of the commemorative function of funerary practice and the role of rituals in the construction of social memory.  A component of his research will be to describe the mechanisms by which ancient competitions constructed and propagated social memory with a focus on the evidence for the durability of these constructions over time.  This new approach can better account for the diachronic change in the occasions of competition, for it relates them to the shifting social structures and social needs that in turn shape social memory.