Month: February 2009

CFP: Identity and Identification in Antiquity

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Supplementary Call for Papers

Identity and Identification in Antiquity

International conference organised by:
Department of Classical Studies, Bar-Ilan University
College of Law, Florida International University
SECL, Classical and Archaeological Studies, University of Kent

Where?
College of Law, Florida International University, Miami, USA
When?
Tuesday 7 April to Thursday 9 April 2009
Deadlines?
Supplementary call for papers, submission of abstracts by 7 March 2009
Further information?
http://identity-antiquity.pagesperso-orange.fr (update in progress)

Background

Identity in modern society, especially over the last few decades, has once again become an increasingly hotly debated topic, engaging social scientists and historians, politicians and religious leaders, journalists and opinion makers–but also the general public. Much of the contemporary debate is focused on three key issues: race, religion and gender. Some of the controversies stirred up in these fields have spilled over into academic ancient history, where consequently the terms of the discussion have often been defined by the issues and trends in contemporary discourse.

Ancient historians, more often than not, have adopted a reactive rather than a proactive stance, not only during the “renaissance” of identity in the late 20th century, but already during the inception of modern nationalism, when ancient history had first been pressed into service to shore up newly emerging identities. Some of the new and alien identity concepts imported into ancient history then, have proven to be surprisingly long-lived. It has taken until 2006 for instance for a major academic monograph (Walter Goffart Barbarian Tides) to explicitly state that there were no “Germans” in antiquity. The academic struggle to eradicate modern European national identies from the ancient world in which they were so firmly implanted by 19th and 20th century historians, responding to the imperatives of political opportunity and conviction, is far from over.

More recently ancient historians have again been “wrong-footed” by the contemporary debate on identity. The discussion of race in antiquity for instance has been rekindled by Martin Bernal’s 1987 publication Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, that is, by the works of a modern Oriental historian. Gender history in antiquity–from its invention a modern history concept–has received much of its early momentum from Sarah Pomeroy’s 1975 Goddesses, whores, wives and slaves: women in classical antiquity. Pomeroy, no doubt, is a classicist, but her work is very self-consciously inspired by modern feminism. In the field of religion one could cite Peter Schäfer’s Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World, published in 1997, a work which explicitly sets out to find the origins of a modern religious conflict in antiquity.

The conference proposes to revisit the question of identity in antiquity from the point of view of the ancient historian. Rather than following a contemporary agenda–were Athenians sexist? – did Romans hate Jews?–we hope to organise discussions which look at identity as a concept embedded in ancient societies: which types of identity are operational in Greco-Roman antiquity, and how and by whom are they defined? As a second theme, however, we wish to advance our understanding of how and why especially ancient history has on various occasions served to supply modern identities with a distinguished past to which otherwise they could not aspire.

Confirmed speakers

Fabienne Colas-Rannou, Université Bordeaux 3, Ausonius
Shimon Epstein, Bar-Ilan University
John Karl Evans, University of Minnesota
Christelle Fischer-Bovet, University of California, Berkeley
Judith Fletcher, Wilfried Laurier University
Dominic Galante, University of Pennsylvania
Shelley Hales, University of Bristol
Judith Hallett, University of Maryland
Arthur Keaveney, University of Kent
Benjamin Lazarus, University of Oxford
Corinne Le Sergent, Université des Antilles et de la Guyane
JoAnn Delmonico Luhrs, Brooklyn College
Geoffrey Nathan, University of New South Wales
Daniel Orrells, University of Warwick
Efstathia Papadodima, University of Texas, Austin
Judith Perkins, Saint Joseph College
Valentin Petroussenko, University of Plovdiv
Mark Thatcher, Brown University
Edmund Thomas, Durham University
Hannibal Travis, Florida International University

Guidelines

This supplementary call for papers is motivated by the change of venue for the conference, moved from the University of the Antilles and Guyane in Martinique to Florida International University in Miami. This change has made it impossible for some of the originally confirmed speakers to attend. However it is the hope of the organisers that the same change of venue may allow some potentially interested collegues to attend for whom Martinique has not been possible.

Papers should aim for a presentation time of 20 to 25 minutes, with 5 to 10 minutes of discussion. Abstracts should be submitted in English for publication on the conference web site, but papers themselves may be presented also in either French or Spanish (in which case the provision of an extended abstract in English for circulation before the conference is advised).

Propositions for papers by graduate students (or advanced undergraduate students) are welcomed by the organisers.

Abstracts should not exceed 500 words in length, stating clearly the title of the paper and outline the main arguments of the presentation. Clarity is important as the organisers will assemble thematic panels on the basis of the abstracts. Abstracts must be received by Saturday 7 March 2009. Speakers will notified of the acceptance of their paper by Monday 9 March 2009. The submission of an abstract shall constitute a commitment to attend the conference; no paper will be communicated in the absence of its author.

Themes and chronological limits

The following is meant to be guidelines for papers and can in some instances be interpreted liberally.

Papers should deal with identity and identification of individuals, groups or communities within the confines of Mediterranean antiquity, from the archaic Greek period to late antiquity (late antiquity to be understood in its modern definition, including the early barbarian successor states). Papers dealing with the use of classical, ancient models of identity (real or imaginary) to identify modern individuals, groups or communities obviously do not fall within these restrictions on time-frame.

The organisers would suggest the following thematic fields, but are open to propositions which while not falling within these themes fit the general topic of the conference:

– Types of identity in antiquity: definition and use
– Representation of identity: literary, graphic, other
– Citizen identity versus ethnic, cultural and religious identities
– State identity versus group, class and community identities
– Class identity versus formal and group identities
– Construction of new identities in antiquity
– Individual identity versus group and community identities
– Gender and identity: individual and collective
– Religion and identity: individual and collective
– Race and identity: individual and collective
– Classical models for modern identity
– Use of “antiquity” to invent modern identities
– Application of modern models of identity to the ancient world

Submission of abstracts

Abstracts should be emailed to Hartmut Ziche, University of the Antilles and Guyane, e-mail: hgz1000 AT cam.ac.uk, before 7 March 2009.

This Day in Ancient History

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

idus februariae

  • Parentalia (day 1) — a festival for honouring/appeasing the dead began on this day with a number of signs: temples were closed, altars did not have fires burn on them, people were forbidden to get married, and magistrates set down the trappings of their office.
  • Fornacalia (day 1) — this was actually a “feriae conceptivae”, which means that it probably wasn’t always held on the same day. Originally, it was a feast of the curiae (an early division of the Roman people) which also seems to have involved a sort of banquet for the gods, although scholars are unsure which gods were specifically honoured. Then again, Ovid claims that rural folk would pray to a divinity called Fornax.

Lupercalia …NOTHING to do with Valentine’s Day

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 13 Comments

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh. The older I get the less patience I have with this one … every year in the first couple of weeks of February, piles of journalists and/or their editors parade their stunning lack of critical thinking throughout the world (but mostly in the North American press) by claiming some sort of link between Lupercalia and Valentine’s Day. This year, I had determined I was not going to comment on this idiocy, and indeed, was just complaining on Twitter t’other night that I had to wade through piles of such digital detritus. But then I found myself at a health and safety meeting, idly deleting similia and I came across this in a student newspaper called the Pine Log:

Valentine’s Day started off as a Roman festival where men stripped naked, grabbed goat- or dog-skin whips, and spanked young maidens in hopes of increasing their fertility, according to Noel Lenski, classics professor of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Say it ain’t so Dr Lenski! Then I poke around a bit and find an interesting little news item from U of C from back in 2002:

On a snowy February 15, Professor Noel Lenski sponsored a traditional Roman Lupercalia using students in his course on Paganism to Christianity as participants. Several students volunteered to play the role of Luperci, traditionally naked male priests who ran around the Capitoline Hill striking maidens with strips of goat hide every February 15.

Fun stuff! But then it went on:

The festival, designed to honor the god Pan and to ensure fertility for young maidens, forms the basis for the modern festival of St. Valentine.

Alas … I think it goes beyond salutory to point out something I also mentioned on the Classics list a few days ago. As noted above, Lupercalia was a festival held on February 15 … some newspaper sources also give February 13 as a date for Lupercalia, then connect it to Valentine’s day. It’s probably time that someone pointed out that THE DATE ISN’T THE SAME! It’s close, but no Romeo y Julieta Churchill. So let’s be charitable and ponder (briefly) what went on at Lupercalia … a bunch of folks sacrificed beasties, smeared themselves with blood, then ran a route where they went around whipping women. If we take the February 13 date, that’s the beginning of a long period where folks honoured their dead ancestors. I think most logical-thinking people (except, perhaps, sado-masochistic necrophiliacs) would be hard-pressed to make any connection between such activities and the romantic sort of love which is celebrated on Valentine’s day. What makes it worse is that we have a Classics professor (a department head, no less!) who appears do be promoting this — come on people!  Let’s take this to its illogical extreme and claim a Roman origin for St. Patrick’s day, where at least the date connection is bang on! The Romans celebrated Liberalia on March 17 and this was one of the days where it was common, we are told, for young Romans to don their toga virilis. OBVIOUSLY there must be a connection between that and holding big parades and drinking green beer. No … wait … April Fool’s Day must be Roman in origin because on April 1 Roman women would sacrifice to Fortuna Virilis , which clearly is connected to playing pranks on people (I know there are cynical women out there who might buy that).

Come on people (and Classics professors in particular) … our discipline is not so attention-deprived that we have to buy into this ‘ad hoc ergo propter hoc’ reasoning!