Cultural Encounters in the Ancient Mediterranean
Keynote speaker & Master: Martin Goodman (Oxford)
We want to invite PhD and Research Master Students, PostDocs, as well as
senior researchers to take part in the second CRASIS Annual Meeting and
PhD/MA Masterclass on 21–22 January 2013.
CRASIS is the interdisciplinary research institute on the ancient world at
the University of Groningen. Researchers from Classics, Religious Studies,
Ancient History, Archaeology, Ancient Philosophy and Legal History are
involved, focusing on Greek and Roman societies as well as on Jewish and
Near Eastern civilizations and on the interaction between these.
The CRASIS Annual Meeting and Masterclass is a two-day event, set up as an
informal meeting place for students at PhD or Research Master level,
postdocs and senior staff to promote discussion, and exchange of ideas
beyond disciplinary boundaries.
We are very proud to announce that this year’s Key-note Speaker and Master
is Professor Martin Goodman (Oxford University). Professor Goodman is a
leading expert on ancient Judaism within its Graeco-Roman context:
http://www.orinst.ox.ac.uk/staff/hjs/mgoodman.html .
The theme of this year’s Annual Meeting and Masterclass will be:
Cultural Encounters in the Ancient Mediterranean
Although many of us are trained to look at the ancient world from one
cultural (or academic) perspective, we are all aware that the ancient world
was both culturally diverse and interconnected. This meeting takes as its
starting point the impact of encounters between cultures, groups and
individuals. It seeks to understand how we should define ‘;cultural
encounters’; and explore what kind of models we should use to approach these
encounters.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of recent theoretical positions
including hybridity, ’tissage, cultural transfer, frontier studies,
postcolonialism, entangled or shared histories, intertextuality,
multilingualism or rational choice theory? How does our understanding of
the ancient world change if we consider the role of cultural encounters in
shaping historical development, literary and artistic traditions as well as
religious and political systems? How can we trace and value the movements
of commodities, texts, religious, or cultural practices, political
institutions and ideas over the ancient world? What happened when these
were transmitted between very different cultural spaces, and how did the
encounters affect the parties involved? What were the mechanisms of these
cultural encounters, and what kinds of persons or social forces were
responsible?
You may focus on the encounters between individuals and groups, on the
wider processes of exploration or colonization of which the encounters were
the result, or on the products of these encounters, including literary
texts, material objects or systems of belief. You may discuss processes of
accommodation, or situations of resistance and conflict. You are invited to
explore and (to assess critically) one or more recent theoretical
approaches.
DEADLINES:
We invite senior researchers to submit a title and short abstract for a
twenty-minute presentation on the first day of the Annual Meeting.
PhD and Research Master Students are invited to submit a topic proposal
(500 words) for the Masterclass on the second day explaining their research
in relation to this year’s theme.
Proposals for both days should be submitted no later that 31 October 2012
with m.popovic AT rug.nl.
MA/PhD Students: Once your proposal has been accepted, ReMa students should
submit 3000-4000 words essays and PhD students 5000-6000 words essays
before 21 December 2012 so that the papers can circulate among the
participants. At the Masterclass ReMa students have ten minutes to briefly
introduce their paper and PhD students have twenty minutes. After each
presentation follows discussion under the expert guidance of Professor
Goodman.
We will soon start a local reading and study group in preparation for the
Annual Meeting and Masterclass. If you are interested, please get in touch
with o.m.van.nijf AT rug.nl.
For more information, see: http://www.rug.nl/crasis
rogueclassicism 