Asketikos Forum

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Asketikos Blog

Daily and weekly postings of news, articles, and media relating to the topic of asceticism.  There are also updates about the site.
http://asketikos.info/blog 

Articles

Christian Asceticism: History, Society, Church

• Blanchard, W. Scott. Petrarch and the Genealogy of Asceticism.
• Brock, S.P. Early Syrian Asceticism.
• Brown, Peter. The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity.
• Casiday, Augustine. Church Fathers and the shaping of Orthodox Theology.
• Castelli, Elizabeth A.  Mortifying the Body, Curing the Soul: BEyond Ascetic Dualism in the Life of Saint Syncletica.
• Clark, Elizabeth A. Theory and Practice in Late Ancient Asceticism: Jerome, Chrysostom, and Augustine.
• Cosgrove, William. Asceticism in Christian Living.
• Chryssavgis, John. The Spiritual Way.
• Daly, Gabriel. Prayer and Asceticism.
• Deems, Mervin Monroe. The Place of Asceticism in the Stabilization of the Church.
• Frankfurter, David T.M. Stylites and Phallobates: Pillar Religions in Late Antique Syria.
• Frazee, Charles A. Anatolian Asceticism in the Fourth Century: Eustathios of Sebastea and Basil of Caesarea
• Hammond, Phillip E. (Review) Innerwordly Asceticism and American Foreign Policy: A Review Essay
• Harrison, Nonna Verna. The human person as image and likeness of God.
• Harvey, S. Ashbrook.  The Sense of a Stylite: Perspectives on Simeon the Elder.
• Hinze, Bradford E. Ecclesial Repentance and the Demands of Dialogue.
• Kennedy, Hugh. From Polis to Madina: Urban Change in Late Antiquity and Early Islamic Syria.
• Kelhoffer, James A. Early Christian Ascetic Practices and Biblical Interpretation.
• McNeill, John T. Asceticism versus Militarism in the Middle Ages.
• Partridge, Loren. Discourse of Asceticism in Bertjoja's Room of Penitence In The Villa Farnese at Caprarola
• Perrin, Michel-Yves. The Limits of the Heresiological Ethos in Late Antiquity.
• Sawyer, Erin. Celibate Pleasures: Masculinity, Desire, and Asceticism in Augustine.
• Schachner, Lukas Amadeus. The Archeology of the Stylite.
• Stark, Rodney. Upper Class Asceticism: Social Origins of Ascetic Movements and Medieval Saints.
• Thurston, Herbert. Stylites or Pillar-Saints.
• Valantasis, Richard. Demons, Adversaries, Devils, Fishermen: The Asceticism of "Authoritative Teaching" in the Context of Roman Asceticism.
• Verdier, Philippe. A Medallion of Saint Symeon the Younger.
• Vogue, Adalbert de. The Meeting of Benedict and Scholastica: An Interpretation.
• Yearley, Lee H. The Ascetic Grounds of Goodness: William James's Case for Virtue of Voluntary Poverty.

in Philosophy:

• Roberts, Tyler T. "This Art of Transfiguration is Philosophy:" Nietzsche's Asceticism.
• Valantasis, Richard. Constructions of Power in Asceticism.

Fasting, Medical and Psychological Opinion:

• Baird, Julian. Swinburne, Sade, and Blake: The Pleasure-Pain Paradox
• Banks, Caroline Giles. There is No Fat in Heaven: Religious Asceticism and the Meaning of Anorexia Nervosa.
• Corrington, Gail. Anorexia, Asceticism, and Autonomy: Self-Control as Liberation and Transcendence.
• Lee, Vernon. Tolstoy as Prophet: Notes on the Psychology of Asceticism.
• Lester, Rebecca J. Embodied Voices: Women's Food Asceticism and the Negotiation of Identity.
• Sobosan, Jeffrey G. Self-Fulfillment, Asceticism, and the Function of Authority.

Judaism

• Elder, Linda Bennett. The Woman Question and Female Ascetics among Essenes.
• Halivni, David. On the Supposed Anti-Asceticism or Anti-Nazritism of Simon the Just.
• Katz, Nathan and Goldberg, Ellen S. Asceticism and Caste in the Passover Observances of the Cochin Jews.
• Satlow, Michael L. "And on the Earth You Shall Sleep:" "Talmud Torah" and Rabbinic Asceticism.
• Thiering, Barbara. The Biblical Source of Qumran Asceticism.

Islam and Eastern Asceticism

• Berger, Allan S. Choosing to Suffer: Reflections on an Enigma.
• Chaudhury, Pravas Jivan. Asceticism in Tagore's Aesthetics.
• Huvitz, Nimrod. Biographies and Mild Asceticism: A Study of Islamic Moral Imagination
• O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. Asceticism and Sexuality in the Mythology of Siva. Part 1.
                  - Asceticism and Sexuality in the Mythology of Siva. Part 2.
• Melchert, Christopher. The Transition from Asceticism to Mysticism at the Middle of the Ninth Century C.E.
• van der Veer, Peter. Taming the Ascetic: Devotionalism in a Hindu Monastic Order.
• Letters - Steven Kemper and Michael Carrithers. Radical Asceticism and the Sinhalese Case.

Misc.

• Classen, Constance. Aesthetics and Asceticism in Inca Religion.
• Dahlberg, Edward. On Passions and Asceticism.
• Gooren, Henri.  Catholic and Non-Catholic Theologies of Liberation: Poverty, Self-Improvement, and Ethics among Small-Scale Entrepreneurs in Guatemala City.
• Woolfolk, Alan. The Artist as Cultural Guide: Camus' Post-Christian Asceticism.

Discourses, Logos, and Treatises

• A Treatise on Ascetical and Mystical Theology by Reverend Adlophe Tanquerey.
• Verba Seniorum
• Adalbert de Vogue on Fasting: To Love Fasting: An Observance that is Possible and Necessary Today.
• The Conferences of John Cassian
• Athanasius' Life of Antony
• John Owen's Mortification of Sin in Believers
• Liber Graduum: The Heavenly Garden of Ascetic Delights.

Simeon Stylites

• The Letters of Simeon Stylites. Edited by Charles C. Torrey.
• The Life of St. Simeon Stylites: A Translation of the Syriac Text in Bedjan's Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum, Vol IV by Frederick Lent.
• Homerica II

About This Site

Asketikos is the Greek root word for asketes, which is the root for askesis, which translates into English as asceticism.  The ancient Greeks used askesis to describe those who engaged in a strict and disciplined practice.  Over time the ascetic came to mean a person who chose to live abstaining from the physical pleasures of the world in a quest for a higher spiritual experience.  Asceticism exists in virtually all world religions, some schools of philosophy, as well as in the secular world in various forms. 

This site is interested in exploring why some people choose to suffer while most pursue pleasure and seek to avoid pain.  This site explores asceticism, martyrdom, penance and psychic masochism in spirituality and secularism.  This site will be updated weekly with new articles, links, and hopefully grow in time.  I am also hopeful that the forum will become active and full of vibrant, analytical, discussion.  This site does not promote a particular faith or worldview.

- February 7, 2011

© All Rights Reserved.  All materials published on this site are for the sole purpose of course-related, non-commercial, educational and academic use.  No materials may be published or reproduced for-profit.  asketikos.info is a not-for-profit website dedicated to offering educational resources for students and academics.
Last update: 2/9/2011