CALL. 19.06.2016: Tradition and Innovation - Exeter (England)

FECHA LÍMITE/DEADLINE/SCADENZA: 19/06/2016

FECHA CONGRESO/CONGRESS DATE/DATA CONGRESSO: 03/09/2016

LUGAR/LOCATION/LUOGO: University of Exeter (Exeter, England)

ORGANIZADOR/ORGANIZER/ORGANIZZATORE: Marcelina Gilka; Taylor FitzGerald,Maria Kneafsey; (University of Exeter)

INFO: lateantiquenetwork@gmail.com

CALL:

The Postgraduate and Early Career Late Antiquity Network is delighted to announce its third workshop, to be held in Exeter on Saturday, 3rd September 2016. The theme will be ‘Tradition and Innovation’. Resuming where we left off last year with a discussion about the periodization of Late Antiquity, this year we would like to focus on the interplay between tradition and innovation. We invite postgraduates and early-career researchers to submit abstracts for papers on any aspect of Late Antiquity, anywhere within the Roman Empire. We welcome papers on both Latin and Greek prose and poetry, history, art, archaeology, other forms of material culture, or combinations of these. Late Antiquity is (stereo-)typically viewed as an age of transition, still heavily dependent on what came before, but with significant changes. The aim of this workshop is to investigate the ways in which Late Antiquity can be defined against ‘the classical world’ and how it defines itself against this ‘classical’ backdrop. This will hopefully help us to explore the meaning of the term ‘Late Antique’ and its relationship (whether historical, literary, or material) to what came before. Some potential questions to consider: • How great are the differences between Late Antiquity and the classical world in the first place? • In which areas can we see changes, and which remained largely the same? • Were the transformations driven consciously or did they evolve? • Did they happen suddenly or in phases? • Were they due to ambition or necessity? • How much influence can be ascribed to rulers, thinkers, artists, soldiers, and/or the people? • What techniques were used by individuals to distance themselves from their predecessors? • What might their ultimate goal have been in that? • Is the dialogue with the past marked by deference, arrogance or healthy competition? • How important was tradition to Late Antiquity, or how important was it to distance oneself from tradition? • Where is tradition absent? Please send abstracts (of no longer than 300 words) to lateantiquenetwork@gmail.com before 5pm on Sunday, June 19th.