Since my Varia and Quick Hits feature has gone on sabbatical, here are a few recent conferences on Late Antiquity:
1) The Eighth Biennial SHIFTING FRONTIERS IN LATE ANTIQUITY CONFERENCE: "Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late Antiquity" at Indiana University, April 2-5, 2009.
The Society for Late Antiquity announces that the Eighth Biennial Conference on Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity will be held at Indiana University and will explore the theme "Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late Antiquity" [ca. 200 - 700 AD]. The confirmed plenary speakers will be Professors Jas Elsner (Corpus Christi , Oxford ) and Seth Schwartz (Jewish Theological Seminary).
Beneath the familiar political and religious narrative of late antiquity lies a cultural history both more complicated and more fascinating. Late antiquity was a time of intense cultural negotiation in which new religious communities and new populations sifted through existing modes of cultural expression, adopting many elements for themselves and turning others aside. This conference seeks to understand how cultural transformation occurred amidst the political and religious disruption that can seem characteristic of late antiquity. To this end, we seek contributions that explore three distinct areas of late antique cultural history: 1) the interaction of "high" and "low" culture, 2) the impact of changing and collapsing political centers on their peripheries, and 3) the emergence of hybrid literary, artistic, and religious modes of expression. Possible contributions to these areas may highlight the permeable division between elite and vernacular culture, the ease with which cultural memes were transmitted across geographic and linguistic boundaries, the adaptability of established cultures to new political and social realities, and the degree to which newcomers were integrated into existing cultural communities. As in the past, the conference will provide an interdisciplinary forum for ancient historians, philologists, Orientalists, art historians, archeologists, and specialists in the early Christian, Jewish, and Muslim worlds to discuss a wide range of European, Middle-Eastern, and African evidence for cultural transformation in late antiquity. Proposals should be clearly related to the conference theme. They should state both the problem being discussed and the nature of the new insights or conclusions
that will be presented.
Abstracts of not more than 500 words for 20-minute presentations may be submitted via e-mail to Prof. Edward Watts, shifting.frontiers.8 (at) gmail.com (Department of History, Indiana University, Ballantine Hall, Rm. 828, 1020 East Kirkwood Avenue , Bloomington , IN 47405-7103 , USA ). The deadline for submission of abstracts is October 15, 2008. The submission of an abstract carries with it a commitment to attend the conference should the abstract be accepted.
2) The Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO) offered a symposium on Archaeology of the Countryside in Medieval Anatolia last weekend at Leiden. You can check out the program here: http://www.nino-leiden.nl/activities.aspx?id=7
3) Next weekend in London there is the annual Late Antique Archaeology (LAA) conference. The program usually appears on their web site (http://www.lateantiquearchaeology.com), but has not yet. So, I've attached it below:
LATE ANTIQUE ARCHAEOLOGY 2008
RECENT FIELDWORK IN URBAN ARCHAEOLOGY
A one-day conference to be held on Saturday 15th March 2008 at the King’s College, London, jointly held by the University of Kent (Department of Classical and Archaeological Studies) and King’s College London (Centre for Hellenic Studies / Dept of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies). This conference will explore innovative fieldwork in late antique urban archaeology, focusing not only on recent careful excavations, but also on attempts to re-evaluate old excavated sites, to recover the context of epigraphy, and to bring modern survey methods to the study of the late antique city.
10.30 Welcome by Luke Lavan (Kent) and Tassos Papacostas (KCL)
*Urban Surface Survey*
10.40-11.10 Kris Lockyear (UCL) Noviodunum, Romania
11.10-11.40 John Bintliff (Leiden) Thespiae and the Boeotia Survey
*Epigraphic and Archaeological Survey*
11.50-12.20 Charlotte Roueché (KCL) Epigraphic survey at Aphrodisias and Ephesus
12.20-12.50 Luke Lavan (Kent) Surface archaeology, spolia and epigraphic context at Sagalassos
*Re-evaluating Old Sites*
14.00-14.30 Axel Gering (Humboldt University, Berlin) Ostia
14.30-15.00 Vincent Deroche (College de France, Paris) Delphi
15.00-15.30 Didier Viviers (ULBruxelles) Apamea
15.40-16.10 Tea and Coffee
*Artefact-rich Deposits*
16.10-16.40 Mark Houliston (Kent) Canterbury: the Late Roman levels at Whitefriars
16.40-17.10 Julian Richard and Marc Waelkens (KULeuven) Sagalassos: the Macellum
*Recent Developments in Istanbul*
17.20-17.50 Ken Dark (Reading) Recent excavations in Istanbul, and the Hagia Sophia Project.
Entry is *FREE* of charge, but to reserve a place please email Luke Lavan ([email protected]).
The meeting will be held in room K2.31 (King's College London, Strand Campus, London WC2R 2LS: Main Building, first floor). Location details: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/about/campuses/strand-det.html. For flights try www.skyscanner.net. Cheap UK train tickets can be obtained in advance from www.thetrainline.com. Direct trains from Canterbury West on Saturday morning leave at 8.35 or 9.06 and arrive 10.00 and 10.36 respectively, at Charing Cross. The best direct train from Oxford leaves at 9.00, and arrives at 10.01 Paddington.
This meeting has been made possible thanks to the support of Museum Selection
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