Shifting Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity X
The Transformation of Literary and Material Genres in Late Antiquity
University of Ottawa, Canada
21-24 March
The tenth biennial Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity conference will take place at the University of Ottawa, Canada, 21-24 March 2013. The period of Late Antiquity (A.D. 200-700) witnessed great cultural changes on a number of levels, e.g. in the emergence of new literary genres (such as hagiography) or of new building types (such as churches) or of new objects of art (consular diptychs). The aim of the conference is to explore what exactly these changes were and how and why they came about: were they the consequence of long-term trends or developments? Or were they rather the result of external factors, the products of what was once termed ‘an age of anxiety’? We hope to receive proposals of papers concerning the many genres that came into being or were transformed during the period, whether they be literary genres, such as panegyric, rhetoric, historiography, chronicles, poetry, epistolography and hagiography, or material genres, such as architecture, epigraphy and numismatics. The term ‘genre’ is thus interpreted broadly and papers that bring together several genres to address this issue, e.g. to consider Procopius’ Buildings both as panegyric and as a source on images of the city in Late Antiquity, or to consider the portrayal of saints in both hagiographies and artistic representations, are particularly welcome.
Two keynote speakers will be taking part in the conference: Professor John Matthews of Yale University (U.S.A.) and Professor Pierre-Louis Malosse, Université Paul-Valéry, Montpelier (France).
The deadline for proposals is 15 November 2012. Abstracts should be 200-300 words in length. Papers may be in English or French. Proposals from graduate students are welcome, but they should indicate on their submission whether they have discussed their proposal with their supervisor or not. Please note that the submission of an abstract carries with it a commitment to attend the conference should the abstract be accepted.
Proposals should be sent to: shiftingfrontiersx@gmail.com.
For further details on the conference see: http://www.scapat.ca/frontieres.