In Latin, textus can mean a piece of weaving. Late antiquity is well thought of as a text or a collocation of texts in which many strands are woven together— strands of the old (the Classical past, old genres, persisting aspects of material culture) and strands of the new (Christianity, new or hybridized written genres, new or hybridized elements in material culture or the built environment). At the meeting of the Society for Classical Studies in Washington, D.C., January 2–5, 2020, the Society for Late Antiquity will sponsor a session on the various textualities in late antiquity.
We are looking for papers on textuality in either written texts or material culture. Papers can consider issues of textuality in late-ancient written texts, e.g., language, intertextuality with prior written texts (pagan or Christian), or even genre. Potential panelists could also propose papers that consider textuality in material culture or the built environment, e.g., aesthetics, building styles, or methods that weave together old and new. We also encourage prospective panelists to construe the term textuality broadly and propose papers that transcend and/or question the options enumerated here.
Abstracts for papers requiring a maximum of 20 minutes to deliver should be sent no later than February 23, 2019 by email attachment to Colin Whiting at cwhiting@ascsa.org. All submissions will be judged anonymously by two referees. Prospective panelists must be members in good standing of the SCS at the time of submission and must include their membership number in the cover letter accompanying their abstract. Please follow the SCS’s instructions for the format of individual abstracts: https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/guidelines-authors-abstracts. The submission of an abstract represents a commitment to attend the 2020 meeting should the abstract be accepted. No papers will be read in absentia and the SLA is unable to provide funding for travel to Washington, D.C.