Seen on various lists:

CALL FOR PAPERS: “Sex in the Margins”

A Conference on Commentaries, Sexuality, and Gender

University of California, Davis, October 10-12, 2014
Co-sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature and the
Program in Classics
Organizers: Ralph Hexter (UC Davis), Laura Pfuntner (UC Davis),
Marc Schachter (University of Oregon)

http://ift.tt/1gKSthB

Just as commentary is hospitable to both mainstream and
esoteric hermeneutic practices, so commentary can host, and
disseminate, views that are both utterly conventional and
radical. We propose a conference to explore this aspect of
commentary, and in particular the intersection of interpretive
traditions and the histories of sexuality and gender. We
therefore solicit proposals for talks that will focus on
commentary as a particular and perhaps even privileged space for
discussions of sexuality and gender. We hope to receive
abstracts addressing a linguistically, geographically, and
temporally broad range of commentaries so that the resulting
conference will contribute to a broader appreciation of the ways
the histories of reception, sexuality and gender are mutually
imbricated in numerous contexts.

Commentary, speaking very generally, is a mode that arises when
a culture prizes (for a variety of reasons) texts of an earlier
cultural formation and must explicate them to contemporaries. In
the case of the western tradition of commentary on “classical”
(i.e., pre-Christian Greek and Latin) texts, works that had high
status for certain sectors of the society confronted readers and
scholars with sexual practices and attitudes that were foreign,
in some cases repugnant to later expectations about sexual roles
and acts. What makes the commentary – whether marginal,
interlinear, or lemmatic – a special instance within reception
is that by its very logic it must confront the ipsissima
verba of the original author (or at times establish what
that verba might have been). In this regard, it is most
similar to translation. Of course, commentary can duck the
challenge, just as a translation can omit offensive passages,
but this is itself worth noting. The expectation, however, that
the commentator will do his/her duty to explicate a text creates
a library of productive negotiations that merit study. Some may
adopt a censorious tone, offering “moral” in addition to
philological instruction. How do the two interact? How does
prejudice impact scholarship and when does philological rigor
trump prejudice?

In other instances, specifics in the classical text may offer a
scholar of a later period an opportunity to speak about nefanda,
license in other words to examine and discuss topics that would
otherwise be taboo. In such cases, one might see the space of
the margin (whether literal or figurative) as liberatory.
Moreover, commentaries themselves have their own reception
histories whose contribution to the histories of sexuality and
gender have hardly been addressed.

The conference we envisage, it need hardly be said, will not be
exhaustive, but we are certainly hoping that it will present a
broad set of examples in the commentary traditions of many
different Greco-Roman authors, with commentaries in Greek, Latin
or vernaculars, and from any period. Studies of commentary on
legal texts would certainly be welcome. We are also eager to
learn about similar (or very different) negotiations within the
commentary traditions in Hebrew, Arabic, Sanskrit, Japanese,
Chinese, etc. While “commentary” seems to imply that we are
dealing with verbal media, by no means must papers be restricted
to “literary” texts.

The conference will take place at the University of California,
Davis on October 10-12, 2014. Interested parties should send an
abstract of approximately 250 words along with a short CV to davismargins AT gmail.com
by April 15, 2014. Although we will not be able to cover
expenses for all conference attendees, we invite scholars whose
participation would be contingent on a subvention to include a
brief description of likely travel expenses and probable
financial support. Some limited grants may be available.

Seen on the Classicists list:

Ancient Mediterranean. 116th Annual Meeting
of the Archaeological Institute of America
USA, New Orleans, 8-11 January 2015
Deadline: 20 March 2014

Since the advent of ‘public archaeology’ in the 1970s, scholarship on
the topic has moved beyond public education as effective heritage
management and protection in the context of CRM work, to debating the
active or incidental role of archaeology in the shaping of community
identities and identity imaginaries, the ethics and economics of
managing the past on behalf of communities, and even the very meaning of
‘public’ and ‘community’ to be served by archaeology, recognizing the
inherently political nature of these terms. Today, ‘public
archaeologies’ vary considerably in approach and objectives, ranging
from essentially PR and fundraiser efforts in support of continuing
projects, to disseminating, humanizing and deciphering specialist work,
to tracing connections with the past as part of community service, to
educating the public on the benefits of the discipline as a service to
the discipline itself, and to democratizing archaeology at its core by
engaging the public in all stages of knowledge production (e.g.
constructivist, experiential, hands-on, inclusive, informationally open,
crowdsourced archaeologies) in keeping pace with the multivocal,
pluralistic, information-rich societies of today.

Despite intense writing and debate along these lines in the broader
realms of archaeological thought , especially from the late 1990s,
community-friendly archaeologies of the ancient Mediterranean have been
comparatively rare, small-scale or little publicized, with most projects
undertaken by museums and governmental entities typically deemed
responsible for serving and educating the communities where
archaeological research occurs. This colloquium intends to a) explore
the role of Mediterranean archaeologists as educators, mediators and
facilitators, and the locally specific resonances (as opposed to a
priori-determined benefits) of their work in the lives of local
inhabitants, b) take the pulse of ‘public archaeology’ thinking in the
Aegean, Greek, Cypriot, Roman, Etruscan, Near Eastern scholarly ambits
by entertaining ways to deal with multiple, excluded, overlooked,
silenced, undesirable pasts, and c) showcase projects that actively seek
to cultivate engagement of different contemporary stakeholders with the
past, including traditionally disenfranchised ‘others’, through
excavations, site-based initiatives, community-embedded efforts, media,
virtual, online projects etc.

Please send a 200-word abstract to publarch AT gmail.com by Thursday, March
20th, 5 pm EST, along with your contact address and affiliation.

Seen on the Classicists list:

Call for Papers: Terracottas in the Mediterranean Through Time
23-25 March 2015, University of Haifa, Israel

The Zinman Institute of Archaeology and the Department of Art History of the
University of Haifa, Israel, invites the submission of papers for the
conference “Terracottas in the Mediterranean Through Time”, dedicated to the
study of terracotta figurines and related objects in the Mediterranean
region from the early periods to late antiquity. The conference will take
place at the University of Haifa in Israel,23-25 March 2015.
The conference is under the auspices of the Association
for Coroplastic Studies (ACoST).

The conference aims to bring together scholars and students who often tackle
the same issues as they study clay figurines and related objects from
different periods and parts of the Mediterranean region.
Scholars who research terracottas of illiterate societies often use
anthropological and ethnographical methods, while those studying terracottas
of historical periods refer to historical sources and artistic analogies.
The various viewpoints and attitudes may enrich and deepen our understanding
of terracotta figurines and their role in society.

The scope of issues to be discussed at the conference will be wide, and will
follow the different stages of the terracottas’ lives:

First stage – the artisans or coroplasts: aspects of manufacture; typology
and iconography; production of large- and small-scale terracottas; social
status of the artisans; organization of workshops; questions of
specialization; relationships with other media and workshops; new
technologies employed in the dating and identification of workshops.

Second stage – patterns of distribution: interaction between terracotta
production and markets; local production versus imports; imitations;
trading, selling and offering.

Third stage – the users: Who used terracottas and who did not; how they were
used and in what circumstances; usage through space and time; other objects
used together with terracottas; themes and types in specific contexts
(sacred, funereal and domestic); choice of types; symbolic meaning conveyed
by terracottas; the role of terracottas in society; terracottas and gender.

Fourth stage – phasing out: How, why and when terracottas went out of use;
patterns of deposition or obliteration; archaeological context of
terracottas and its meaning.

Fifth stage – ancient terracottas today: influence of ancient terracottas on
19th- and 20th-century art; robbery and the antiquities market; museum
display of terracottas.

The official language of the conference is English. Presentations should not
exceed 20 minutes.

Abstracts of 200-300 words should be submitted by 30 September 2014 to Dr.
Adi Erlich,aerlich AT research.haifa.ac.il in Word format including surname,
first name, position, affiliation, phone number, email address and title of
paper.

We invite proposals for panels and individual papers on these and related
topics.

The scientific committee:
Dr. Adi Erlich
Dr. Sonia Klinger
Prof. Tallay Ornan
Consultant: Prof. Jaimee Uhlenbrock