Lecture: Christina von Braun, Humboldt University, “The Price of Money: A Psycho-Cultural History”

“The Price of Money: A Psycho-Cultural History”

Professor Christina von Braun (Humboldt University, Berlin)

 

The modern history of money began when in early Greek antiquity a new form of currency was invented that was ‘certified’ not through material goods nor by the sovereign, but through rituals of sacrifice in the temple. As no sacrifice has any value if the person performing the sacrifice does not implicate the self in the ritual, money is thus validated by the human body.  The link between money and the symbolic sacrifice of the human body takes on different forms for the male and the female human, yet both imply a domestication of sexuality. The more abstract money became the more it referred to this form of certification. The talk will draw on anthropological, historical, and contemporary findings and will bring together perspectives from the history of religions and economic theories. It will be accompanied by visual examples that draw a line from antiquity to modern economic and financial institutions.

 

Sponsored by the European Studies Council.