This talk examines sculpture in late-Republican Italian sanctuaries to propose an embodied theology: relations between mortals and gods articulated through representations of the body. Cult statues and portraits reveal a theology grounded in difference, while temple pediments demonstrate that divine relationships could be expressed without depicting gods. Combining art history, archaeology, and anthropology, the analysis shows how close attention to sculptural choices enriches our understanding of religious experience and relationships between worshippers and their gods.
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Alexander Ekserdjian, Assistant Professor of the History of Art, Yale University, is a historian of ancient Mediterranean art with a specialization in the sculpture of Hellenistic Central Italy. His research focuses on ancient responses to visual art, particularly the role played by sculpted images of the gods in religious experience. He is interested in the theology and anthropology of sacred sculpture, and the ways material culture can contribute to the study of Roman religion. Projects in progress include a monograph centered on the representation of the gods in Central Italy in the early period of Roman overseas expansion (3rd–1st centuries BCE), an article on lists of art objects inscribed in stone within Greek sanctuaries, and a study on the modern reception of ancient votive body parts, as well as chapters on experimentation in Central Italian pedimental sculpture and on the ‘limits’ of Etruscan art. He is the editor of Crafting Encounters in the Art of Early Italy, published by the Archaeological Institute of America.