Conference 'Traces, Memory, and Identity in Antiquity'
Friday 12 November, 2.00-6.00pm, Somerville College
Saturday 13 November, 9.00am-1.00pm, Maison Française d'Oxford
Convened by Stéphane Benoist (Lille/MFO) and Beate Dignas (Somerville College)
Participants can either attend onsite or online.
To attend the event onsite at Somerville College on the 12th and at the Maison on the 13th, please register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/186648419447
To attend the event online, please register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAsc-6upzsrGNWvlYjWV3TA3pIIUZc6C46R
In recent decades, academic research in all ancient disciplines has furthered our understanding of ancient Mediterranean cities by using concepts of ‘memory’ and ‘identity’. In turn, these concepts, expressed in categories such as ‘collective and social memory’, ‘rhetoric’ and ‘performative rituals’, have been analysed fruitfully by the range of perspectives and evidence offered by the ancient world. Sociological, anthropological and historical research into these concepts benefits precisely from a conscious and integrated use of literary, epigraphic, numismatic and iconographic material. The six papers of this seminar are varied in terms of temporal and geographical focus, media and subject matter, but they all sharply focus on the polysemic notion of ‘traces’ (Fr.), ‘tracks’ (Engl.), ‘Spuren’ (Germ.) to introduce a new spin to the field of ancient memory studies.
Programme:
Friday afternoon: Somerville College (Park 5, 2-6 pm)
2-2.15: Welcome: Beate Dignas (Somerville College)
Chair: Charlotte Potts (Somerville College)
2.15-3.15: Stéphane Benoist (ULille, HALMA, MfO, Somerville College), “Towards an Ancient History from the perspective of traces”
3.15-4-15: Rosalind Thomas (Balliol College), “Traces, ‘memory’ and the cultural patterning of tradition: the case of Lydia”
4.15-4.45: Coffee break
4.45-5.45: Beate Dignas (Somerville College), “The past in the present - tracing identity in epigraphic dossiers”
Saturday morning: Maison française d’Oxford (auditorium, 9am-1pm)
9-9.15: Welcome: Pascal Marty (MfO director) & Stéphane Benoist (ULille, HALMA, MfO, Somerville College)
Chair: Luke Pitcher (Somerville College)
9.15-10.15: Luca Castagnoli (Oriel College), “Traces, Memory and Identity in Hellenistic Philosophy”
10.15-11.15: Catherine Baroin (Rouen, ERIAC), “Traces, memory, and amicitia in Cicero’s and Pliny’s letters”
11.15-11.45: Coffee break
11.45-12.45: Bryan Ward Perkins (Trinity College), “Monumentalising memory: the example of the Last Statues of Antiquity”
12.45-1pm: Concluding remarks
Pic: Apotheosis of Homer Relief, signed by Archelaos of Priene, 300-100 BCE, Alexandria (?)
