Tuesday 24 July 2012

WORKSHOP ON THE RECEPTION OF JOSEPHUS BY JEWS AND CHRISTIANS

Applications are invited to participate in this workshop, to be held in Oxford, at

the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Yarnton Manor, on

January 7-8, 2013.

Please submit your application in English, with a short CV and an abstract (not

more than 500 words) of a research paper to be discussed in the workshop, to

the Registrar of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies

(
registrar@ochjs.ac.uk), by Friday 14 September 2012.

Bursaries to cover travel expenses and accommodation will be available for

selected participants. Please indicate in your application whether you would

like to be considered for a bursary, including an estimate of your travel

expenses.

The workshop will be devoted to discussion of the research papers, which will

be circulated to all participants in advance.

Applicants will be informed of the result of their applications on or before

Friday 21 September 2012.

The workshop will be the first in a series, as part of a project on the reception of

Josephus in Jewish culture from the 18
th century to the present. This project, which is

funded by the AHRC, focuses on the ways in which Jews since the middle of the

eighteenth century have built on earlier uses of Josephus’ writings for their own

purposes, examining the reasons for fluctuations of interest over time and in different

places and seeking to understand how such preferences were influenced by

contemporary issues and how they in turn affected them. The project also looks at

the impact of non-Jewish scholarship on Jewish interpretations of Josephus, and the

extent to which Jewish attitudes to Josephus were affected by responses to the

2

historian as a controversial participant in complex political events and as a moral

agent.

In this first workshop, on the reception of Josephus by Jews and Christians before

1750, we hope that the participants will help us to identify the issues in Josephus’

writings which played a key role in the reception of his work in ancient and medieval

times, investigating which themes are specific to specific periods or types of literature

(including translations and adaptations into other languages, notably Latin and

Hebrew) and which remained relevant in later centuries; the reasons why early

modern scholars (both Jewish and Christian) were attracted to Josephus’ writings,

and how their approach differed from earlier reception of Josephus; and the role

played by Josephus in the popular imagination of Jews and Christians throughout

this period.

Topics suitable for paper proposals for the workshop include the Testimonium

Flavianum, patristic uses of Josephus, rabbinic references to Josephus in late

antiquity, the manuscript tradition, Josippon, Azariah de’Rossi, uses of Josephus by

Christian humanists in the early modern period, chronography, early printed editions,

illustrations and artistic representations, and vernacular translations.

Further workshops will address the Jewish reception of Josephus in the 18
th and 19th

centuries in Western Europe (June 17-18, 2013); the Jewish reception of Josephus

in the 19
th and early 20th centuries in Eastern Europe (January 6-7, 2014); and the

Jewish reception of Josephus in the 20
th and 21st centuries (June 16-17, 2014).

We plan to publish a selection of the studies discussed at the four workshops in a

volume, to share the results of the project and to help to define the agenda for future

research.

To apply, and for further information about participation in the workshop and

about bursaries, please contact the Registrar of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew

and Jewish Studies (
registrar@ochjs.ac.uk) before 14 September 2012.

Martin Goodman, Tessa Rajak, Andrea Schatz

Sunday 22 July 2012

PAGANS AND CHRISTIANS IN LATE ANTIQUE ROME - INTERPRETING THE EVIDENCE


Rome, 20-21 September 2012

Palazzo Falconieri, Accademia d’Ungheria, Via Giulia 1, Roma





Thursday 20 September 2012



9 am – 9: 30 am

Welcome Addresses and Introductory Presentation

Antal Molnár, director of the Hungarian Academy in Rome

Marianne Sághy, Michele R. Salzman, Rita Lizzi Testa conference organizers



9: 30 am – 11 am The Topography of Paganism and Christianity in Late Antique Rome



Laura Acampora (Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, Roma) Pagan Temples and Christian Buildings in Rome between the Fourth and Fifth Century: an Archeological and Topographical Approach

Michael Mulryan - Luke Lavan (University of Kent) The Fate of Temples of Ostia in an Italian Context

Claire Sotinel (Université Paris-Est Créteil Val de Marne) The Urban Prefect and  Christian Building Projects in Rome



11 am -11:30 am Coffee Break



11:30 am – 1 pm Law, Cult, Cultural Memory   



María Victoria Escribano Paño (University of Zaragoza), Pagans and Christians in Fourth-Century Rome: Interpreting the Evidence of Codex Theodosianus XVI

Douglas Boin (Georgetown University) Imperial Cult in Christian Rome:

Towards a More Nuanced Understanding of Fourth and Fifth Century Society

Gitte Lønstrup Dal Santo (Accademia di Danimarca, Roma) Storytelling and Cultural Memory in the Making: Celebrating Pagan and Christian Founders of Rome



1 pm- 3 pm Lunch



3 pm- 4:30 pm Pagan Cults



Kristine Iara (LMU München) Connecting the Remains: Cult Places in Late Antique Rome

Silviu Anghel (EDRIS, Göttingen) Shifting the Ortodoxy: the Changing Face of Pagan Cults in Late Antique Rome

Jonas Bjornebie (Accademia di Norvegia, Roma) Re-Interpreting the Cult of Mithras in Late Antique Rome



4:30 pm – 5 pm Coffee Break



5 pm- 6:30 pm Christianity and the City



Danielle Slootjes (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen) Christianity and its Influence on Crowd Behavior in Late Antique Rome

Giulia Marconi (Università di Perugia) Pagans, Christians and Young People: Spaces of Education in Fourth-Fifth Century Rome

David Natal (University of Manchester) Symmachus and the Anician Entourage: Famine and Religious Controversy in late Fourth-Century Rome



7 pm Keynote lecture

Michele R. Salzman (University of California Riverside) Pagans and Christians in Constantine's Rome



8 pm Cocktail



Friday 21 September



9 am-10:30 am Conflict and Cohabitation



Robert Chenault (Villamette University) Beyond Pagans and Christians: Politics and Infra-Christian Conflict in the Controversy over the Altar of Victory of Rome

Maijastina Kahlos (Helsinki University)  Artis heu magicis: The Label of Magic in the Fourth-century Conflicts and Disputes

Gaetano Colantuono (Università di Bari) Propter copiam puellarum: Interreligious Marriages among Christians and Pagans in the Late Antiquity



10:30-11 am Coffee Break



11 am – 12:30 pm Looking at the Gods: Reading Divine Images



Alessandra Bravi (Università di Perugia) Divine Images between Decoration and Cult in Fourth-Century Rome

Caroline Michel d’Annoville (University of Grenoble 2) Rome and Imagery in Late Antiquity: Perception and Uses of Statues in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries

Levente Nagy (Pécs University) Hercules the Christian



12:30- 3 pm Lunch



3 pm – 4:30 pm Poetry and Propaganda



Marianne Sághy (CEU Budapest), Christianity as Romanitas:Bishop Damasus’ Reforms   

Dennis E. Trout (University of Missouri) Making Difference: the Carmina contra Paganos and the Invention of Late Roman Paganism

Neil McLynn (Oxford University), Poetry and Pagans in Late Antique Rome: the Case of the Senator ’Converted from the Christian religion to Servitude to the Idols'



4:30 pm – 5 pm Coffee Break



5 pm – 6:30 pm Family Pietas and Cult of the Saints



Francesca Diosono (Università di Perugia) Professiones gentiliciae. The collegia of Rome between paganism and Christianity

Nicola Denzey (Brown University, USA) Reinterpreting ’Pagans’ and ’Christians’  from Rome's Late Antique Mortuary Evidence

Hartwin Brandt (Bamberg University) Paulinus of Nola and the City of Rome



7 pm  

Concluding remarks by Rita Lizzi Testa



8 pm Dinner

Thursday 5 July 2012

St. Luke’s Scholarships - 4th British Patristic Conference


 The 4th British Patristics Conference

University of Exeter  5 – 7 September 2012

is pleased to announce it will offer ten

St. Luke’s Scholarships

Each scholarship will provide £200 towards conference and travel costs.  Scholarships are available for graduate students and for post-doctoral scholars with no current academic post or source of income.

Please apply to:   Dr Morwenna Ludlow    britishpatristics@gmail.com by   Friday 10th August 2012.

Please provide the following details:-

1. Full contact details (email and postal address).

2. Your current institution, degree course and academic supervisor (if applicable).

3. The title of your dissertation/thesis, or a short (one sentence) summary of your current research.

4. Your current funding (for example: are you in receipt of a scholarship? does it cover fees alone, or fees and living expenses? does it provide you with a lump sum to set against fees?)

5. Do you have additional sources of funding or additional demands on your income (e.g. do you have dependents)?

6. Are you able to apply for funding from your current institution to cover the cost of this conference?  Have you applied?  Have you been successful?  If so, how much have you been awarded?

You do not necessarily have to provide figures; however, the clearer the information is, the more easily the committee will be able to make their decision.  Decisions will be made on the basis of our judgment of financial circumstances and how much the applicant will benefit from attending the conference, not on academic merit, so please do not provide an academic cv.  We will not contact your supervisor unless we need to clarify your current academic affiliation and/or funding from your current institution.  All information will be treated absolutely confidentially by the conference committee.  It is a condition of the scholarships that the recipients’ names are sent to the St Luke’s College foundation, but the names will not otherwise be publicised.

Applications which have not arrived by noon on Friday 10th August 2012 will not be considered.

The committee will make their decisions as soon as they can.

The committee is very grateful to the St. Luke’s College Foundation for their generosity in making this award and for providing other funding for the conference.  We are particularly pleased that they were prepared to include the 4th British Patristics Conference in their funding round for the 2012-13 academic year.

Full details about the conference, including programme and booking details can be found at:

http://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/research/conferences/patristics .