The Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions CFP for 2019 SCS Meeting in San Diego

Epic Gods, Imperial City: Religion and Ritual in Latin Epic from Beginnings to Late Antiquity

How did Roman writers of epic reflect on the ritual realities of the imperial city? In this panel we invite scholars working on Latin epic in all its instantiations to explore how the genre in its Italian setting offers frameworks for approaching ritual practice, including prophecy, ruler cult and conceptions of the gods; the relationship between religion and philosophy; insights offered through material culture, including iconography and sanctuaries; the forging of memory and the tools of persuasion; and epic reflections on the establishment and expansion of the sacralized landscape. We encourage submissions connected with epic authors from the earliest to the latest examples, Livius through Lucretius, Vergil to Valerius; papers which offer interdisciplinary and comparative approaches are especially welcome.

Abstracts should be submitted by email attachment as .doc or .docx files to socamr@gmail.com and should be from 500-600 words in length for a paper to last between 15 to 20 minutes. Abstracts should contain a title and a word count, but should not have any information regarding the identity of the submitter. For further information about abstract format, please see the SCS Program Guide. The deadline for submission of abstracts is Thursday, March 1, 2018, and all abstracts for papers will be reviewed anonymously. Please direct all queries to SAMR at socamr@gmail.com. 

Spiegel Summer Institute Seminar on Medieval Hebrew Literature: Immanuel of Rome

by Dana Fishkin

The Shalom Spiegel Institute Summer Seminar in Medieval Hebrew Poetry

Weeklong Seminar on Immanuel of Rome

The Shalom Spiegel Institute of Medieval Hebrew Poetry at the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, is pleased to announce that it will hold a one-week intensive seminar in medieval Hebrew poetry dedicated to the work of Immanuel of Rome (c. 1265-1335) from June 25-29, 2018 at the Seminary. The week will include daily seminars with leading scholars on various aspects of Immanuel’s work (Hebrew and Italian poetry and prose, biblical exegesis) as well as opportunities for developing skills in the close reading of medieval Hebrew texts. The seminar will meet for morning and afternoon sessions Monday through Friday.

The program is intended to supplement academic programs that offer medieval Jewish studies or Hebrew literature but do not provide courses in which medieval Hebrew poetry and belles lettres are read in the original. It is also expected to benefit students and faculty who have had access to such courses, but whose academic work would benefit from more intensive training in this area.  In addition to its pedagogic goals, the seminar is intended to advance the field of “Immanuel Studies.”

Organizers:

Raymond Scheindlin, Director Emeritus, Shalom Spiegel Institute, Jewish Theological Seminary

Jonathan Decter, Brandeis University

Dana Fishkin, Touro College 

Featured Presenters: 

Tovi Bibring (Bar Ilan University), Dvora Bregman (Ben Gurion University), Yehuda Halper (Bar Ilan University), Isabelle Levy (Columbia University), Revital Rafael-Vivante (Bar ilan University), James Robinson (University of Chicago).

How to Apply:

To apply, write a letter of no more than two pages covering the following points:

1. Describe your academic program and interests, explaining how some study of medieval Hebrew poetry might relate to your work.
2. Describe your knowledge of Hebrew, particularly a. your ability to read academic prose; b. your familiarity with such classical texts as the Bible, Talmud, or medieval literature.
3. Provide the name and e-mail address of an academic mentor who is familiar with your program of study and your language skills and who can evaluate your academic performance. Recommendations will only be requested on an individual basis if deemed necessary.

Letters should be received by March 15, 2018 and should be addressed to Professor Dana Fishkin (danafishkin5@gmail.com).  

Applicants who are accepted to the program will be notified by March 25, 2018.

For further questions, please write Jonathan Decter (decter@brandeis.edu) or Dana Fishkin (danafishkin5@gmail.com).   

Dear Friends of LAA,
 I am writing to cordially invite you to the next LAA meeting. It will be on the subject of burial and memorial in Late Antiquity, and is a thematic analysis of the topic, following on from  our fieldwork meeting on the subject last November. The conference will be held in Birkbeck, University of London on the 17 March 2018. Details are below. Please register via Eventbrite if you wish to attend: https://laaburial2018.eventbrite.co.uk. If  this is too difficult please reserve directly with me: michaelmulryan@gmail.com. An initial invitation via Eventbrite itself was sent out a week ago, so apologies if you are receiving this again.  Please feel free to distribute the attached poster (in three formats) for publicity within your institutions.
 Kind regards  Michael Mulryan and Luke Lavan
*******************
This conference reviews the state of late antique funerary practices, on a thematic basis, from scientific examinations of skeletons and their DNA, to treatments of the deceased body, to the nature of memorial structures and how they were treated over  time.
(A) DEMOGRAPHY
(i) OSTEOLOGY: LATE ANTIQUE LIVES FROM BONES
09.45-10.45 Flavio de Angelis (Sop. Arch. Di Roma) and Andrea Battistini (Sop. Arch. Di Roma) Lives from Bones: Anthropological Evaluation in the City of Rome
(ii) BIOMOLECULES IN LATE ANTIQUITY (ISOTOPES, DIET, MIGRATION, EPIDEMIC, ENDEMIC DISEASE)
11.00-11.30 Alexandra Chavarria (Padova) Northern Italy
11.30-12.00 Mathew Emery (McMaster) Southern Italy (Skype)
(B) RITUALS AND IDENTITIES: DEATH RITUALS AND TREATMENT OF THE BODY
12.15-12.45 Rhea Brettell (Bradford) Organic residues from mortuary contexts (Britain).
12.45-13.15 Thibaut Devièse (Oxford) Colourants and dyes
Respondent: Béatrice Caseau (Paris IV) Treatment of the body: Ointments and perfumes
(C) COMMEMORATION, MONUMENTS, FUNERARY TOPOGRAPHY
(i) MEMORIALS - LATE ANTIQUE COMMEMORATION,
14.00-14.30 Zsolt Magyar (Budapest) Mausolea in Pannonia
14.30-15.00 Chris Sparey-Green (Kent) Mausolea in NW Europe
(ii) SPATIAL RELATIONSHIPS OF DEAD TO LIVING
15.15-15.45 Judit Ciurana Prast (Barcelona) Funerary Landscapes of Catalonia
15.45-16.15 Efthymios Rizos (Oxford) Christian elite burials in Anatolia / Constantinople & the cult of relics
(iii) MEMORIAL AND OBLIVION: SPOLIA AND ATTITUDES TO TOMBS
16.30-16.45 Luke Lavan (Kent) Spolia and the archaeology of memory
16.45-17.15 Douglas Underwood (Kent) City walls and tomb destruction  (Skype)
17.15-17.45 Nick Mishkovsky (Kent) City walls and tomb preservation  (Skype)
17.45-18.00 Conclusion.
All are welcome. Admission 25 GBP, 10 GBP Students. Registration is via Eventbrite:  https://laaburial2018.eventbrite.co.uk
Venue: Room 421 inside Birkbeck College, Malet Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX. Metro: Russell Square.
Conveners: L.Lavan/M.Mulryan (Kent) T.Penn (Edin.) R,Darley (Birkbeck).
Sponsors: University of Kent, Birkbeck (University of London), J.Beale, Brill.
We hope you can make it.
Best,Luke Lavan, Rebecca Darley, Michael Mulryan, Tim Penn
Dr Michael Mulryan
Editor - Late Antique Archaeology
Honorary Research Fellow
Centre for Late Antique Archaeology
University of Kent
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Symposium—Early Codices

Production, Destruction, and Modern Conservation

Date: February 23, 2018, 1:00 – 5:00 pm

Location: 38 West 86th Street, Lecture Hall

Contact: academicevents@bgc.bard.edu

Cost: Free

This symposium, organized in conjunction with the exhibition The Codex and Crafts in Late Antiquity, aims to give an overview of the scholarship around the innovation of the codex in late antiquity and its gradual establishment as the standard form of the book until today. Speakers will focus on two distinct but complementary aspects—the historical, which derives primarily from the study of codices as texts, and the material, which derives from the study of codices as physical objects. The purpose of both the exhibition and the symposium is to merge different disciplines, points of view, and approaches in order to gain a better understanding of the early history and evolution of one of the most fascinating and culturally significant objects, the book.

Throughout history the number of books produced must have been huge, but the number of books lost is also substantial. Subtracting those destroyed from those created leaves us the number of books preserved today, which, especially for those produced in the earliest stages of the evolution of the book is frustratingly small. This scarcity of physical evidence is partly what makes the surviving codices from the early centuries extremely important, not just for their texts but also for their technical and material culture aspects. Conserving these precious relics is a challenge that poses both physical and theoretical problems, but at the same time grants a privileged access which enables a closer study and understanding of the technical history of codices.

1 pm

Peter N. Miller
Dean and Professor, Bard Graduate Center
Ivan Gaskell
Professor, Curator and Head of the Focus Gallery Project, Bard Graduate Center
Welcome

Georgios Boudalis
Head of the Book and Paper Conservation Laboratory, Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki, Greece
Introduction

1:20 pm

Brent Nongbri
Independent Scholar
The Emergence of the Codex in the Roman Empire

2 pm

Dirk Rohmann
Lecturer, University of Wuppertal
Canon Formation: Book-Burning and the Christian Codex in Late Antiquity

2:40 pm

Coffee Break

3 pm

Francisco H. Trujillo
Associate Book Conservator, Morgan Library and Museum
Incipient Forms: Codicology of the Coptic Bindings Collection at the Morgan Library & Museum

3:40 pm

Maria Fredericks
Drue Heinz Book Conservator, Thaw Conservation Center, Morgan Library and Museum
The Coptic Manuscripts at the Morgan Library & Museum: Conservation Then and Now

4:20 pm

Georgios Boudalis
Head of the Book and Paper Conservation Laboratory, Museum of Byzantine Culture
Codex as Craft: Can a Book be Compared to a Sock?

5 pm

Reception

This event will be livestreamed. Please check back the day of the event for a link to the video. To watch videos of past events please visit our YouTube page.

CALL FOR PAPERS 2018

Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association

Conference Dates: October 4-6

Little America

Cheyenne, Wyoming

This is call for papers for 2018

Deadline for Abstracts: March 1, 2018

I am looking for paper on topics in Old English language or literature. Please send me your abstracts by March 1, 2018 at the email below.

Elizabeth Howard

Professor

Department of English

Fellow

Institute for Bibliography and Editing

Kent State University

Kent, OH 44242

ehoward@kent.edu

CFP: "Where does it end?": Limits on imperial authority in Late Antiquity
Organizer: Jacqueline Long, Loyola University Chicago
Sponsored by the Society for Late Antiquity

At the meeting of the Society for Classical Studies in San Diego, California, JANUARY 3–6, 2019, the Society for Late Antiquity will sponsor a session on limits to imperial authority in Late Antiquity.

No other mortal man commanded more authority in empire. The late-Roman emperor was source of law, head of government, victor of his armies' wars (whether or not he led in battle), exemplar and enforcer of orthodoxy even after repudiating his ancient presidency over state cults, because public order relied on him. How was such a man to “remember [he was] mortal”? If the famous triumphal counterpoint was no more than a Christian interjection to the tradition of ceremony (Beard, Roman Triumph [2007] 85-92), nevertheless it had currency amid the ideological and historical changes of the later Empire. Its question generalizes: what limits on imperial power were recognized, after Roman imperialism proved its geographical limit? The Society for Late Antiquity seeks to compose a panel of papers addressing this multifarious question. Both events and ideas are welcome for consideration. How were usurpers able to reject rivals' rule and claim imperial title for themselves? What failed when they fell short? In what ways could laws rein in rulers? Could criticism or consent regulate their actions, or only opposed force? What cultural values shaped judgment of reigning and past emperors; did such judgments matter? How did alternative organs of empire-wide power, such as bureaucracy or armies or Church, or local constituencies seeking accommodation, work with emperors so as to achieve ends of their own?

Abstracts for papers requiring a maximum of twenty minutes to deliver should be sent no later than February 16, 2018 by email attachment to Mark Masterson at Mark.Masterson@vuw.ac.nz (Note: please don't mail abstracts to the organizer of this panel). All submissions will be judged anonymously by two referees. Prospective panellists must be members in good standing of the SCS at the time of submission and must include their membership number in the cover letter accompanying their abstract. Please follow the SCS’s instructions for the format of individual abstracts: https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/guidelines-authors-abstracts. The submission of an abstract represents a commitment to attend the 2019 meeting should the abstract be accepted. No papers will be read in absentia and the SLA is unable to provide funding for travel to San Diego.