[Antiquitas] VL: CfP Regionalism and Integration in the Later Roman Empire (270-305)

[Antti Lampinen]

Dear all,

Please find below the forwarded call-for-papers for the inaugural conference of the Centre for Late Antique Studies at the University of St. Andrews.

Apologies for possible cross-posting.

Best wishes,
Antti Lampinen

Newton International Fellow
School of Classics
University of St. Andrews

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Lähettäjä: Classicists [CLASSICISTS at liverpool.ac.uk] käyttäjän Roger Rees [rdr1 at ST-ANDREWS.AC.UK] puolesta
Lähetetty: 4. syyskuuta 2015 13:35
Vastaanottaja: CLASSICISTS at liverpool.ac.uk
Aihe: CfP Regionalism and Integration in the Later Roman Empire (270-305)

A conference at St Andrews, 16th June 2016, to mark the launch of the Centre for Late Antique Studies.

The conference will open on the evening of 15th June with a keynote lecture by Professor Jean-Michel Carrié

The politics of unions, national separatists, capital cities and regional powerhouses are not new. This conference seeks to investigate the interchange of regional politics and cultural identity between the reign of Aurelian (270) and the end of the first Tetrarchy, a time when the Roman empire was re-founded on a new political and conceptual basis. In 270, the Gallic Empire of Postumus was recently over; the Palmyrene Empire of Zenobia was fighting its last stand, soon to be reabsorbed under Roman control. The headline acts in the thirty five years to follow would include the colossal wall Aurelian built round the ancient capital; the crushing of Carausius’ attempt at usurpation; the establishment under the Dyarchy and Tetrarchy of new imperial capitals/residences in Trier, Sirmium, Nicomedia, Milan, Antioch, and Thessalonica; and the fundamental overhaul of the structures of Roman provincial government. At the same time, foreign threats continued to snap and growl. This new mapping of political power onto the empire’s geography generated competing tensions; between new centres and old; between a geographical decentering of power and an intensification of governmental intervention; and between established elites and the ascendant star of freshly empowered political classes. Religious developments had evident political repercussions, as imperial policy became more assertive and made more forceful use of the state apparatus to persecute dissenting groups (including Christians and Manichaeans). The aim of this conference is to consider the extent and the limits of cultural and political integration of the later Roman empire, exploring the ways in which it was re-organized and conceptualized by contemporaries.
These developments raise a number of questions that challenge traditional views of the Tetrarchic empire as a unified and stable political entity:

•       how did different groups and societies conceive the Roman empire? How did they react to the political and administrative changes taking place during this period?
•       In what sense can we speak of a unified empire?
•       What were the forms, means, and limits of political and cultural integration?
•       How did the new rituals and ceremonies of power celebrate the unity of the empire?
•       How did local religions relate to the new political realities?
•       How did persecuted religious groups locate themselves in the imperial orbit?

We invite proposals for 30 minute papers on issues such as provincial self-fashioning, representations of empire-wide (or even global) or local authority, regional preoccupation, responsiveness to distant command, ambitions of and reactions to collection and redistribution of resources across the empire, developments in the relationship between politics and religion, spatial hierarchies and dynamics between rural areas and the urban centres, performance and negotiation of loyalties and allegiances, and the co-opting or dispersal of former ‘separatist’ elites in the provinces. Contributions addressing the challenges posed by our sources to the period in question, especially when examined in connection with the overall theme, are also encouraged.

We welcome proposals from the full range of relevant disciplines including literature, history, art and archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics, papyri and law. It is our intention to use the conference as the kernel for an edited collection.

Conference papers will be 30 minutes with 15 minutes for discussion.

Please send proposals (300 words) by 30th November to Carlos Machado, (the Director of the Centre for Late Antique Studies, carm3 at st-andrews.ac.uk)

Antti Lampinen, Carlos Machado and Roger Rees

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