Claudia D. Bergmann is going to present a working paper on "Full Belly vs. Starving Body: Ritual Reversal and the Human Body in Biblical and Early Jewish Texts”

Aspects of imagined ritual reversal in regard to ancient ideas about eating are the topic of this paper. It will particularly focus on the opposition of satisfied and starving human bodies both in early Jewish texts that deal with this world and in texts that discuss circumstances in the World to Come. The aim is to apply both the ritual theories that might be applied to these texts and investigate the human characteristics that, according to the texts discussed, would lead human bodies either to starvation or satisfaction. Finally, the question will be ask whether the texts view this world or the World to Come as the mundus inversus, the world where the usual laws and norms are (temporarily) out of order.