Bruce Lincoln

Caroline E. Haskell Professor of the History of Religions in the Divinity School; also in the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Committee on Medieval Studies; Associate Faculty in the Departments of Anthropology and Classics

Ph.D. (University of Chicago)

Bruce Lincoln

Publications

I. Books
  • From Artaxerxes to Abu Ghraib: Lessons from Achaemenian Persia about Religion, Empire, and Torture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming.
  • La politique du paradis perse. Paris: Paul Geuthner, forthcoming.
  • Holy Terrors: Thinking about Religion after September 11. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
    Korean translation by Yunseong Kim. Seoul: Dolbegae Publishing Co., 2005
  • Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
    Awarded the Gordon J. Laing Prize for that book which adds greatest distinction to the University of Chicago Press and faculty.
    Received American Academy of Religions Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion, Analytic-Comparative category.
    Korean translation forthcoming from Ehak Publishing Co.
    Italian translation by Silvia Romani forthcoming from Il Mulino.
    Romanian translation by Eugen Ciurtin forthcoming.
  • Authority: Construction and Corrosion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
    Nominated for the National Book Award.
    Italian translation: L’ Autorità: Costruzione e Corrosione (trans. by Silvia Romani), with an introduction by Maurizio Bettini. Rome: Einaudi, 2000.
  • Death, War, and Sacrifice: Studies in Ideology and Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
    Chinese translation by Kejia Yan (Shanghai: Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2002).
  • Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
    Named one of the Outstanding Academic Books of 1989 by Choice.
  • Myth, Cosmos, and Society: Indo-European Themes of Creation and Destruction. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986.
  • Emerging from the Chrysalis: Studies in Rituals of Women's Initiation. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981.
    2nd, revised edition: Emerging from the Chrysalis: Rituals of Women's Initiation. New York: Oxford University Press 1991.
    Italian translation: Diventare Dea. I riti di iniziazione femminile (trans. by Erica Joy Manucci). Rome: Edizioni di Communità, 1983.
  • Priests, Warriors and Cattle: A Study in the Ecology of Religions. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.
    Awarded American Council of Learned Societies Prize for Best First Book in History of Religions.
    Hungarian translation by Éva Pócs (Budapest: L'Harmattan, forthcoming).
    Spanish translation: Sacerdotes, guerreros y ganado: Un estudio sobre la ecologia de las religiones (trans. by Marco Virgilio García Quintela). Barcelona: Editorial Akal, 1991.
II. Volumes Edited
  • With Richard Leppert, Discursive Strategies and the Economy of Prestige (Special Issue, Cultural Critique 12 [Spring 1989]).
  • Religion, Rebellion, Revolution: An Interdisciplinary and Crosscultural Collection of Essays. London: Macmillan Press, and New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985.
  • With Alf Hiltebeitel and Norman Girardot. The Mythic Imagination: Studies in Honor of Mircea Eliade (Special Issue, History of Religions 16/4, May 1977).
III. Articles
  • “From Artaxerxes to Abu Ghraib: On Religion and the Pornography of Imperial Violence,” in Religion and Power (Åbo: Donner Institute Publications, forthcoming).
  • “How to Read a Religious Text: Reflections on some passages of the Cha-ndogya Upanis?ad,” History of Religions (forthcoming).
  • “On Political Theology, Imperial Ambitions, and Messianic Pretensions: Some Ancient and Modern Continuities,” in James Wellman and Kyoko Tokuno, eds., Religion, Violence and the State: Patterns across Time and Tradition (Seattle: University of Washington Press, forthcoming).
  • “Hermann Güntert in the 1930s: Heidelberg, Politics, and the Study of Germanic/Indogermanic Religion,” in Horst Jünginger, ed., The Study of Religion under the impact of National Socialist and Fascist Ideologies in Europe (forthcoming).
  • “Big and Little in Old Persian,” in Charles de Lamberterie, ed., Festschrift for Françoise Bader (forthcoming).
  • “Debreasting, Disarming, Beheading: Some Sacrificial Practices of the Scyths and Amazons” (chapter 16 in Death, War, and Sacrifice), reprinted in Jeffrey Carter, ed., Understanding Sacrifice: A Reader (London: Cassell Academic Press, forthcoming).
  • “An Early Moment in the Discourse of “Terrorism:” Reflections on a Tale from Marco Polo,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 48 (2006): 242-59.
  • “Responsa Miniscula,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 17 (2005): 59-67.
  • “Rebellion and Treatment of Rebels in the Achaemenid Empire,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 7 (2005): 167-79.
  • “Theses on Religion and Violence,” ISIM (Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World) Newsletter 15 (Spring 2005): 12, available here (pdf). Farsi translation by Heidar Azodanloo, Mardomsalari, January 20, p. 6.
  • “The Cyrus Cylinder, the Book of Virtues, and the 'Liberation' of Iraq: On Political Theology and Messianic Pretentions,” in Religionen in Konflikt: Vom Bürgerkrieg über Ökogewalt bis zur Gewalterinnerung im Ritual, ed. Vasilios Makrides and Jörg Rüpke (Münster: Aschendorf, 2004), pp. 248-64.
  • (with Clarisse Herrenschmidt) “ Healing and Salt Waters:The Bifurcated Cosmos of Mazdaean Religion,” History of Religions 43 (2004): 269-83.
  • “À la recherche du paradis perdu,” History of Religions 43 (2003): 139-54.
  • “Hegelian Meditations on 'Indo-European' Myths,” Papers from the Mediterranean Ethnographic Summer Seminar 5 (2003): 59-76.
  • “’He, not they, best protected the village’: Religious and Other Conflicts in 20thCentury Guatemala,” in Jacob Olupona, ed. Beyond Primitivism: Indigenous Religious Traditions and Modernity (New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 149-63.
  • “The Initiatory Paradigm in Anthropology, Folklore, and History of Religions,” in D.B. Dodd and C.A. Faraone, eds., Initiation in Ancient Greek Rituals and Narratives: New Critical Perspectives (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 241-54.
  • “Symmetric Dualisms: Bush and bin Laden on October 7, 2001,” in Abbas Amanat and John Collins, ed., Apocalypse and Violence (New Haven, CT: Yale Center for International and Area Studies, Council on Middle East Studies, 2002), pp. 89-112.
  • “Retheorizing Myth,” in Synnøve des Bouvrie, ed., Myth and Symbol: I. Symbolic Phenomena in Ancient Greek Culture (Oslo: Norwegian Research Council, 2002), pp. 215-32.
  • “Isaac Newton and Oriental Jones on Myth, Ancient History, and the Relative Prestige of Peoples,” History of Religions 42 (2002): 1-18.
    “A Response to Robert Segal,” Religious Studies Review 28/3 (July 2002): 196-99.
  • “A Tribute to Mark L. Krupnick,” Criterion, Spring 2002, pp. 2-4.
  • “Sir William Jones, Iranian Myth, and the Thesis of Aryan Origins,” in Pitye: Studia in Honorem Prof. Ivan Marazov (Sofia: Anubis Publ., 2002), pp. 39-46.
  • “Intertextual Silence and Veiled Critique: Snorri on Harald Fairhair and Váli Hö?r’s-slayer” in Kontinuität und Brüche in der Religionsgeschichte: Festschrift for Anders Hultgård, Michael Stausberg, ed. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001), pp. 485-91.
  • “Revisiting ‘Magical Fright,’” American Ethnologist 28 (2001): 778-802.
    “Retiring 'Syncretism,'“ Historic Reflections/Réflexions historiques 27 (2001): 453-60.
  • “Once Again the Bovine’s Lament,” in Sorin Antohi, ed., Religion, Fiction, and History: Essays in Memory of Ioan Petru Culianu, 2 vols. (Bucharest: Editura Memira, 2001) 2:83-98.
  • “The Center of the World and the Origins of Life,” History of Religions 40 (2001): 311-26.
  • “Retorika I Prismex: Tersit I Omeroboto S`branie” (“Rhetoric and Laughter: Thersites and the Homeric Assembly”), Bulgarian translation by Emil Marianov, Mif 5 (2001): 58-85.
  • “Georges Dumézil: Continuing Legacy and Continuing Questions,” Archaeus 4 (2000): 75-89.
  • “Ritual, Change, and Marked Categories,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 68 (2000): 487-510.
  • “Death By Water: Strange Events at the Strymon (Persae 492-507) and the Categorical Opposition of East and West,” Classical Philology 95 (2000): 12-20.
  • “Risposta a Maria Michaela Sassi, ‘Pensare la diversità umana senza le razze: l’ambiguità della physis,” I Quaderni del ramo d’oro 3 (2000): 163-73.
  • “Culture,” in Russell McCutcheon and Willi Braun, eds., Guide to the Study of Religion (London: Cassell Academic, 2000), pp. 409-22.
    Greek translation forthcoming in Egheiridio Threskeiologias. Dimitris Xygalatas (trans.). (Thessaloniki, Greece: Vanias Edition, 2004).
  • “Scholarship as Myth,” Council of Societies for the Study of Religion Bulletin 28/3 (September 1999): 59-62.
  • “Dumézil, Ideology, and the Indo-Europeans,” Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft 98 (1999): 221-227.
  • “The History of Religions and the History of Authority,” in Jørgen Podemann Sørensen and Erik Reenberg Sand, eds., Comparative Studies in the History of Religions (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 1999): 41-56.
  • “La morte della Sibilla e le origini mitiche della pratica divinatoria,” in Ileana Chirassi Colombo and Tullio Seppelli, eds., Sibille e linguaggi oracolari: Mito, Storia, Tradizione (Pisa and Rome: Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali, 1999), pp. 209-223.
  • Danish translation by Morten Warmind: “Sibyllens død,” Chaos 30 (October 1998): 27-42.
  • “Response to Pietro Clemente, ‘Gli antenati dentro la pagina’,” Anales de la Fundación Joaquín Costa 15 (1998): 299-302.
  • “Who Speaks in Myth?,” Folklore Forum 29/2 (Fall 1998): 86-88.
  • “Apocalyptic Temporality and Politics in the Ancient World,” in The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, 3 vols., ed. John J. Collins, Bernard McGinn, and Stephen J. Stein (New York: Continuum Press, 1998) 1:457-75.
  • “Conflict,” in Mark Taylor, ed., Critical Terms in Religious Studies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 55-69.
  • “Rewriting the German War-God: Georges Dumézil, Politics and Scholarship in the late 1930s,” History of Religions 37 (1998): 187-208.
    Swedish translation by Stefan Arvidsson: “På spaning efter den germanska krigsguden: Georges Dumézil, politik och forskning under det sena 1930-talet,” Svensk Religionshistorisk Årsskrift 7 (1998): 9-35.
  • “Pahlavi kirre–ni–dan and traces of Iranian creation mythology,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 117 (1997): 681-685.
  • “Competing Discourses: Rethinking the Prehistory of mythos and logos,” Arethusa 30 (1997): 341-363.
  • “La poetica della persona in un testo islandese medievale,” Parolechiave 10/11 (1996): 169-174.
  • “Old Persian fras?a and vas?na: Two terms at the Intersection of Religious and Imperial Discourse,” Indogermanische Forschungen 101 (1996): 147-167.
  • “Mythic Narrative and Cultural Diversity in American Society,” in Wendy Doniger & Laurie Patton, eds., The Study of Myth after Eliade (Charlotttesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996), pp. 163-176.
    Abridged Chinese translation by Kejia Yang, Digest of the Contemporary Philosophy and Social Sciences of Foreign Countries 11 (1997): 31-32.
  • "Theses on Method,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religions 8 (1996): 225-227.
    Reprinted in Russell McCutcheon, ed., The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion: A Reader (London: Cassell, 1999), pp. 395-98.
    Reprinted with preface as “Reflections on Theses on Method,” in Tim Jensen and Mikael Rothstein, eds., Secular Theories on Religion (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2000), pp. 117-21.>
  • “Kings, Warriors, and the Left Hand,” in Edwin Gerow & Sara Denning-Bolle, eds., Festschrift for Kees Bolle (Malibu: Undena Publications, 1996), pp. 371-384.
    Italian translation: “I re, i ribelli e la mano sinistra,” published as an appendix to Cristiano Grottanelli, Ideologie, miti, massacri: Indoeuropei di Georges Dumézl (Palermo: Sellerio, 1993), pp. 175-188.
    “Gendered Discourses: The Early History of mythos and logos,” History of Religions 36 (1996): 1-12.
  • “The Ship as Symbol: Mobility and Mercantile Capitalism in Gautrek's Saga,” in Ole Crumlin-Pedersen and Birgitte Munch-Thye, eds., The Ship as Symbol in Prehistoric and Medieval Scandinavia (Copenhagen: Danish National Museum, 1995), pp. 25-33.
  • “Upstaging Authority,” University of Chicago Magazine (February 1995): 30-34.
  • “Diventare umano/a,” in Carla Pasquinelli, ed., Quaderni, Vol. 6: Forme dell' identità culturale (Naples: Liguori, 1994): 45-52.
  • “A Lakota Sun Dance and the Problem of Socio-Cosmic Reunion,” History of Religions 34 (1994): 1-14.
    Italian translation by Maria Baiocchi in Ossimori 3 (1993): 67-74.
  • “La politica di mito e rito nel funerale di Giulia: Cesare debutta nella sua carriera,” in La Cultura in Cesare, Diego Poli, ed. (Rome: Il Calamo, 1993), pp. 387-396.
  • “Socrates' Prosecutors, Philosophy's Rivals, and the Politics of Discursive Forms,” Arethusa 26 (1993): 233-246.
  • “Mito e storia nello studio del mito: Un testo oscuro di Georges Dumézil” Quaderni di Storia 32 (July-Dec. 1990): 5-17.
  • “Prophecies, Rumors, and Silence: Notes on Caesar's Last Initiative,” in Episteme: In ricordo di Giorgio Raimondo Cardona, Diego Poli ed., special issue of Quaderni Linguistici e Filologici 4 (1986-1989): 59-73.
  • (with Richard Leppert), “Introduction,” to Discursive Strategies and the Economy of Prestige, Special Issue, Cultural Critique 8 (1989): 5-23.
  • “Mortuary Ritual and the Economy of Prestige: The Malagan for Bukbuk,” Cultural Critique 8 (1989): 197-225.
  • “The Druids and Human Sacrifice,” in M. A. Jazayery and W. Winter, eds., Languages and Cultures: Stuides in Honor of Edgar Polomé (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1988), pp. 381-395.
  • “Embryological Speculation and Gender Politics in a Pahlavi Text,” History of Religions 27 (1988): 355-365.
  • “Physiological Speculation and Social Patterning in a Pahlavi Text,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 108 (1988): 135-140.
  • “Ritual, Rebellion, Resistance: Once More the Swazi Ncwala,” Man 22 (1987): 132-156.
  • “On the Scythian Royal Burials,” in Susan Skomal and Edgar Polomé, eds., Proto-Indo-European: The Archeology of a Linguistic Problem, Festschrift for Marija Gimbutas (Washington: Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series, 1987), pp. 267-285.
  • “Feste e massacri: Reflessioni antropologiche sulla notte di San Bartolomeo,” Studi e Materiali di Storia degli Religioni 52 (1986): 275-290.
  • “Shaping the Past and Future,” Review article of Georges Dumézil, “L'Oubli de l'homme et l'honneur des dieux. Times Literary Supplement (3 October 1986), pp. 1107-1108.
    Swedish translation [with additions] by Erik af Edholm: “Georges Dumézil och människans glömska,” Häften för Kritiska Studier 19 (1987): 62-73.
  • “Mito, Storia, Sentimento, e Società: Osservazioni preliminari su un grande tema,” Thélema (Cagliari) 9 (1986): 43-54.
  • “Ancora il mondo alla rovescia: Aspetti dell' inversione simbolica” Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Università di Siena 6 (1985): 185-200.
  • (with Cristiano Grottanelli), “A Brief Note on (Future) Research in the History of Religions” University of Minnesota Center for Humanisic Studies, Occasional Papers, No. 4 (1985).
    Reprinted in Method and Theory in the Study of Religions 10 (1998): 311-25.
  • “Notes toward a Theory of Religion and Revolution,” in B. Lincoln, ed., Religion, Rebellion, Revolution (London: Macmillan, 1985), pp. 266-92.
  • Farsi translation by Heidar Azodanloo: Ettela'at 10 (1995): 22-28.
    Swedish translation by Erik af Edholm: “Religion och Revolution,” Häften for Kritiska Studier 19 (1986): 4-23.
  • “Introduction,” in Religion, Rebellion, Revolution, pp. 3-11.
  • “The Tyranny of Taxonomies,” University of Minnesota Center for Humanistic Studies, Occasional Papers, No. 1 (1985).
  • “Revolutionary Exhumations in Spain, July 1936,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 27 (1985): 241-60.
  • Spanish translation by J.A. Carazo and M.L. Ferrandis Garrayo: “Exhumaciones Revolucionarias en España, Julio 1936,” Historia Social 35 (1999): 101-18.
  • “Sacrificio e Creazione, Macellai e Filosofi,” Studi Storici 25 (1984): 859-74.
  • English version “Of Meat and Society, Sacrifice and Creation, Butchers and Philosophy,” L'Uomo 9 (1985): 9-29.
  • “The Earth Becomes Flat: A Study of Apocalyptic Imagery,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 25 (1983): 136-53.
  • “Der politische Gehalt des Mythos,” in Hans Peter Duerr, ed., Alcheringa, oder die beginnende Zeit: Studien zu Mythologie, Schamanismus, und Religion (Frankfurt: Qumran Verlag, 1983), pp. 9-25.
    Reprinted in: Psychoanalyse 4 (1983): 305-18.
    Italian translation [with minor additions]: “Concezione del Tempo e Dimensione Politica del Mito,” Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni 7 (1983): 75-86. (Raffaele Pettazzoni Centenary Volume)
  • “Places Outside Space, Moments Outside Time,” in Edgar Polomé, ed., Homage to Georges Dumézil (Washington: Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series, 1982), pp. 69-84.
  • “Waters of Memory, Waters of Forgetfulness,” Fabula 23 (1982): 19-34.
  • “Mithra(s) as Sun and Savior,” in Ugo Bianchi and M.J. Vermaseren, eds., La Soteriologia dei Culti Orientali nell'Impero Romano (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1982), pp. 505-26.
  • “The House of Clay,” Indo-Iranian Journal 24 (1982): 1-12
  • “The Lord of the Dead,” History of Religions 20 (1981): 224-41.
  • “On the Imagery of Paradise,” Indogermanische Forschungen 85 (1980): 151-64.
  • “The Ferryman of the Dead,” Journal of Indo-European Studies 8 (1980): 41-59.
  • “The Rape of Persephone: An Archaic Scenario of Women's Initiation,” Harvard Theological Review 72 (1979): 223-35.
  • “The Hellhound,” Journal of Indo-European Studies 7 (1979): 273-86.
  • “Death and Resurrection in Indo-European Thought,” Journal of Indo-European Studies (1977): 247-64.
  • “Two Notes on Modern Rituals,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 45 (1977): 147-60.
  • “Thomas-Gospel and Thomas-Community: A New Approach to a Familiar Text,” Novum Testamentum 19 (1977): 65-76.
  • “Treatment of Hair and Fingernails among the Indo-Europeans,” History of Religions 16 (1977): 351-62.
  • “Women's Initiation among the Navaho; Myth, Rite and Meaning,” Paideuma 23 (1977): 255-63.
  • “The Indo-European Cattle-Raiding Myth,” History of Religions 16 (1976): 42-65.
  • “The Myth of the Bovine's Lament,” Journal of Indo-European Studies 3 (1975): 337-62.
  • “Homeric lussa: Wolfish Rage,” Indogermanische Forschungen 80 (1975): 98-105.
  • “The Religious Significance of Women's Scarification among the Tiv,” Africa 45 (1975): 316-26.
  • “The Indo-European Myth of Creation,” History of Religions 15 (1975): 121-45.
  • “Indo-Iranian *gautra-,” Journal of Indo-European Studies 3 (1975): 161-71.
IV. Encyclopedia Articles
  • In Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide, Sarah Johnston, ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, forthcoming, 2004), “Religion and Politics: Introduction” (pp. 547-48), “Epilogue” (pp. 657-67).
  • In Encyclopedia of Women and World Religion, Serinity Young, ed. (New York: Macmillan, forthcoming), “Divination,” “Indo-European Religions,” “Initiation.”
  • In Encyclopedia Iranica, E. Yarshater, ed. (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers,1988): “Cithra, Cehr” (Vol. 2: 118-119).
  • In Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade, general ed., (New York: Macmillan, 1987): “Beverages” (Vol. 2: 119-123); “Cattle” (3:123-127); “Dismemberment” (4:371-374); “Human Body: Myths & Symbolism” (6:499-505); “Indo-European Religions: An Overview” (7:198-204); “Initiation: Women's Initiation” (7:234-238); “War and Warriors: An Overview” (15:339-344).
  • In Altiranische und Zoroastrische Mythologie, Carsten Colpe, ed., (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta Verlag, 1974-82), Sonderdruck aus Wörterbuch der Mythologie, H.W. Haussig, general editor: Arezura, pp. 287-88; Astvat.ereta, pp. 294-96; Azi Dahaka, pp. 300-302; Azi Srvara, p. 302; Buiti, p. 311; Cinvat.peretu, pp.311-13; Daena, pp. 316-17; Daeva, pp. 317-19; Drachenkampf, pp. 320-31; Gayomart, pp. 344-46 (346-47, with Carsten Colpe); Geus Tasan, p. 347; Geus Urvan, pp. 347-49; Hadayaos, p. 352; Haosyangha Paradata, pp. 355-56; Kunda, p. 365; Pairika, pp. 397-98; Paurva, pp. 398-99; Rind, pp. 402-3 (403-4 with Bernfried Schlerath); Saosyant, pp. 406-9; Saurva, p. 409; Spenta Mainyu, pp. 413-14; Spento.data, pp. 414-15; Tahma Urupi, pp. 421-22; Vaya, p. 432; Vaya Darego.hvadaiti, pp. 432-33; Vayu, pp. 433-36 (with Bernfried Schlerath); Yima, pp. 447-50.
V. Book Reviews

Occasional reviews in American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, History of Religions, Journal of Ritual Studies, Man, Method and Theory in the Study of Religions, Religious Studies Review, and the Times Literary Supplement.

VI. Journalism


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