CFP: "Julian" at the 2016 SCS Annual Meeting

Call For Papers The Emperor Julian

Organizer: Gavin Kelly, University of Edinburgh

Sponsored by the Society for Late Antiquity

Julian ruled as sole emperor for less than 20 months between November 361 and June 363; however, his reign is among of the best attested periods of ancient history, and more of his writings survive than of any previous Roman emperor. The last pagan emperor was also the first emperor born in Constantinople, and the first to have been baptized and brought up as a Christian. His religious reversal made Julian the object of intense interest debate for contemporaries such as Libanius, Gregory Nazianzen, and Ammianus Marcellinus (recently illuminated in Gregory’s case by Susanna Elm’s Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church); he continued to provoke fascination throughout the Byzantine period and for historians and writers since the renaissance, including among many others Gibbon, Ibsen, and Cavafy. Interest in his religious reaction and the vivid personality revealed in his and his contemporaries’ writings has stimulated numerous popular biographies and biographically oriented scholarly works, and to some extent overshadowed literary interest in his works (though see now Nicholas Baker Brian and Shaun Tougher (eds.), Emperor and Author),or interpretation of his actions in the broader context of fourth-century political history. His context in the religious history of the period might merit further attention in the light of contrasting recent views of the religious history of the fourth century from Alan Cameron and Peter Brown. We invite proposals for papers on Julian as politician, as author, or as thinker; on the relationship between his actions and his writing; on Julian in the context of fourth-century literature and history; and on perceptions of Julian, whether by contemporaries or by later historians and creative artists.

This panel, sponsored by the Society for Late Antiquity, will form part of the 2016 meeting of the Society for Classical Studies (formerly the American Philological Association), to take place in San Francisco between 7 and 10 January 2016. One-page abstracts (ca. 400 words) for papers requiring a maximum of 20 minutes to deliver should be sent by email attachment to Gavin Kelly at Gavin.Kelly@ed.ac.uk no later than Monday, 16 February 2015. Please follow the SCS’s instructions for the format of individual abstracts: http://www.apaclassics.org/index.php/annual_meeting/abstract_instructions/guidelines_for_authors_of_abstracts. Prospective panelists must be members in good standing of the SCS at the time of submission and must include their SCS membership number in the cover letter accompanying their abstract. All proposals will be judged anonymously by two referees. Note that submitting an abstract represents a commitment to attend the meeting and that the Society for Late Antiquity cannot provide funding for travel.  

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Dr. Paul E. Kimball

Bilkent University

Faculty of Humanities and Letters

Program in Cultures, Civilizations, and Ideas

06800 Bilkent

Ankara, Turkey

office: (+90) 312 290 1034

fax: (+90) 312 266 4606