Between Heaven and Earth: Law, Power, and the Social Order in Late Antiquity

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

Between Heaven and Earth: Law, Power, and the Social Order in Late Antiquity,

13-16 September, 2012, Manchester, England

The format of the meeting will not be based exclusively on lectures. Rather, we envisage a mix of formats for generating discussion and exchanging expertise, including:

a)      PRIMARY SOURCE MASTER-CLASS  Contributors will pre-circulate key primary sources on a givien topic, and to lead or contribute to seminar-style discussion and/or evaluation of their significance

b)      HISTORIOGRAPHIC MASTER-CLASS Contributors will pre-circulate key secondary sources on a givien topic, and will lead a seminar-style assessment and/or re-evaluation of their significance. The sources can either be ‘landmark’ publications or publications whose importance has been overlooked or misunderstood.

c)      FIRST PERSON RETROSPECTIVE Contributors will offer a powerpoint talk or a seminar-style discussion of pre-circulated material, or a combination): In this case you would offer an informal overview of one or more of your own previous publications (similar to the American Academy of Religion ‘How My Mind Has Changed’ series or the Torino Petersen seminars).  Many scholars—and not only younger scholars!—will be intensely interested to hear ‘from the horse’s mouth’ what is really at stake in key publications.  This is especially true for publications that are not in one’s own native language—sometimes a clearer understanding of the landscape or context of a scholar’s work changes one’s understanding dramatically.

d)      OVERVIEW RETROPSPECTIVE involving a retrospective on a wider historiographical area

e)      ROUNDATABLE We welcome suggestions for plenary roundtables on key topics, along with suggestions of individuals who might contribute a five-minute ex verbal introduction of a pre-circulated handout.

f)       LECTURE (in order to make the most of the opportunity to exchange a deadline of 1 September is set for submission of lecture handouts.  This will allow them to be pre-circulated to other conference participants at the same time as the ask to please plan to pre-circulate your hand

Proposals should include a title, indication of source material to be discussed, and a short paragraph describing the argument (in the case of lectures) or theme (in the case of other formats) Please feel free to indicate an interest in more than one format for the material and  to get in touch with questions or suggestions! These should be addressed to Kate Cooper (kate.cooper@manchester.ac.uk) in the first instance.