Greece in Two Conferences

Here are two cool conferences to fire the imagination.

First, the Gennadius library will host a conference entitled "Philhellenism, Philanthropy, or Political Convenience? American Archaeology in Greece" next week. The Gennadius web site provides information on the scope, the speakers, and the abstracts. As one might expect the American School Director, Jack Davis, and the School's Archivist, Natalia Bogeikoff-Brogan, have assembled an impressive group to talk about the deeply intertwined phenomena of philanthropy, philhellenism, and archaeology. I suspect that the ongoing events in Greece will provide this conference with an even more urgent backdrop. (Also check out the one-day conference on Mistra two days later!)

Next fall, the University of Texas will host a conference called "Corinth in Contrast". This is the third in a series of conferences focusing on the history and archaeological of Ancient Corinth. The first has appeared a book, called Urban Religion in Roman Corinth, and I suspect that the second conference is a forthcoming publication. I am among those invited to give a paper which I have tentatively entitled, "The Ambivalent Landscape of Christian Corinth: the Archaeology of Place, Theology, and Politics in a Late Antique City". As the conference is centered around:

"the polarities that we often use to characterize forms of inequality—urban/rural, male/female, Greek/Roman, rich/poor, pagan/Christian, Jew/Gentile, monotheist/polytheist, slave/free, high/low status, etc. Participants are also encouraged to move beyond these polarities by 1) bringing forward new data; 2) reexamining existing data; 3) showing connections between different forms of inequality; and/or 4) applying new methods or theories. The focus on Corinth should allow us to produce more nuanced appraisals and more complicated categories of analysis. "

Since ambivalence is a viable opposite of polarity, I think I should be able to speak to the major themes of the conference.

It's also exciting to see that there will be a PKAP contingent including David Pettegrew and Sarah Lepinski as well as Sarah James who is one of the conference's organizers and an honorary PKAP member by marriage. The Corinth-Koutsopetria Axis is a intellectual alliance to be reckoned with!