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2019 Ohio State Classics Graduate Colloquium

A Crucible of Cultures: Cultural Exchange in the Ancient Mediterranean

In the wake of Hordern and Purcell’s The Corrupting Sea, there has been a renewed interest in studying the cultures of the Mediterranean as part of an integrated whole rather than in isolation. The annual OSU Classics Graduate Colloquium invites papers on a range of topics that explore the interconnections between peoples in and around the Mediterranean in the ancient world broadly conceived (Bronze Age to Byzantium/Carolingian Renaissance). Since most research has focused on relatively narrow archaeological concerns, we encourage papers that attempt to tackle big picture questions. Broad categories might include:

  • authorship, authorial voice, responses to cultural connectedness
  • social and structural patterns, institutions
  • theoretical and methodological approaches to cultural contact and exchange
  • language contact; bilingualism; multilingualism
  • religions: old, new, emerging
  • heresies; prophets; false-prophets
  • economic exchange and commerce
  • warfare; resettlement; displacement
  • iconography; visual and performative arts

We encourage papers from all fields including, but not limited to, Archaeology, Philosophy, Near Eastern Languages, History, Linguistics, Religious Studies, Art History, Classics, Anthropology, Geography, etc. Preference will be given to papers that incorporate a non-Classical culture with Greece and/or Rome over those that analyze the itneraction between Greece and Rome alone.

We are excited to announce that Dr. Johannes Haubold of Princeton University will be presenting a keynote lecture entitled “A Bastardized and Unserious Inheritance: the Case of Chaldaean Philosophy.”

All submissions should include 1) an abstract not exceeding 300 words and 2) a brief CV or academic bio not exceeding one page. We ask that all submissions and inquiries be sent to osuclassicscolloquium@gmail.com.

DATES: Deadline for submissions: October 20th, 2018

Will notify all applications: November 10th, 2018

Colloquium: February 22nd – 23rd , 2019

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(Photo: "Handwritten" by A. Birkan, licensed under CC BY 2.0)