Fall 2022
All meetings are on Fridays from 3:00-4:30 PM (except for November 4) and will be held in a hybrid format in Dunford 2229 (UTHC Small Seminar Room) and via Zoom.
- September 16
Participant Presentation: Tina Shepardson, "Christian Martyrs in a Christian Empire: Chalcedon and the Politics of Appropriation"
- October 21
Participant Presentation: Matthew Baker
*SPECIAL EVENT*
Thursday November 3 @ 5PM
Thelma Thomas, “Angelic Appearances and the Desert Fathers”
- November 4 @ NOON (NOTE THE TIME), location TBA
Visiting Scholar Presentation: Thelma Thomas, Art History, NYU
- December 9
Current Scholarship: Robin Jensen, From Idols to Icons: The Emergence of Christian Devotional Images in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 2022)
All meetings are on Fridays from 3:00-4:30 PM and will be held in a hybrid format in Dunford 2229 (UTHC Small Seminar Room) and via Zoom.
- February 1
Participant Presentation: Jacob Latham, Part I Imperial Performance: Chapter 1 "Arrival and Accession”
- March 8
Participant Presentation: Gregor Kalas
- April 12
Participant Presentation: Felege Yirga
- May 10
Current Scholarship: Mary Farag, What a Church Sacred? Legal and Ritual Perspectives from Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 2021): https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520382008/what-makes-a-church-sacred
Spring 2022
- February 2, 3:30-5, via Zoom
Participant Presentation: Jacob Latham, “Pestilence, Public Rituals, and Popular Leadership in Late Antiquity”
- March 2, 3:30-5:00, via Zoom
Visiting Scholar Presentation: Michele Salzman, University of California Riverside, “Falls of Rome”
- March 30, 3:30-5:00, via Zoom
Participant Presentation: Felege Yirga
- April 20, 3:30-5:00, via Zoom
Visiting Scholar Presentation: Jackie Murray, University of Kentucky
- May 13, 1:00-2:30, via Zoom
Current Scholarship Workshop: Michele Salzman, Falls of Rome: Crises, Resilience, and Resurgence in Late Antiquity (Cambridge 2021)
Fall 2021
- September 10, 2021, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Participant Presentation: Tina Shepardson, Department of Religious Studies
Title: Speaking of Jews: Late Antique Antioch's Shifting Anti-Jewish Rhetoric
- September 24, 2021, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Participant Presentation: Gregor Kalas, The Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and School of Architecture
Title: The Residential Architecture of Late Antique Rome.
- October 8, 2021, 12:30-2:00 P.M.
Visiting Scholar Presentation: Julia Watts Belser, Georgetown University
Title: Disability Studies and the Destruction of Jerusalem: Rabbi Tsadok and the Subversive Potency of Dissident Flesh
- November 12, 2021, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Participant Presentation: Michael Lovell, Department of History
Title: Discussion of a chapter from dissertation
- December 3, 2021, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Current Scholarship Workshop: Matthew Canepa, The Iranian Expanse
Spring 2021
- Friday, January 22, 2021, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Participant Presentation: Felege Yirga, Department of History
Title: “Strange Bedfellows: Memory, Forgetting, and Sectarianism in John of Nikiu's Accounts of the Patriarch Apollinarios (551-570 CE)”
- Friday, February 26, 2021, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Participant Presentation: Laura Roesch, Department of History
Title: “Conceptualizing Christianization: A Late Ancient Poetics of Landscapes, Martyrdom, and Violence"
- Friday, March 19, 2021, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Visiting Scholar Presentation: Stephen Shoemaker (University of Oregon)
Title: “A New Arabic Apocryphon from Late Antiquity: The Qur’an”
- Friday, April 9, 2021, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Participant Presentation: Tina Shepardson, Department of Religious Studies
Title: “Monumental Lives: Sixth-Century Memorials of a Community in Exile"
- Tuesday, May 4, 2021, 3:00-4:30 P.M.
Current Scholarship Workshop:
Maijastina Kahlos, Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity, 350-450 (Oxford University Press, 2019)
Fall 2020
- Friday, August 28, 2020, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Jacob A. Latham
Title: “Claiming Romanitas: Christian Verse Invective, Aristocratic Distinction, and Magna Mater in Late Antique Rome”
- Friday, September 11, 2020, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Sarah Bond, University of Iowa
Discussion on her book Trade and Taboo and her recent work on work and workers
- Friday, October 16, 2020, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Mira Balberg, University of California, San Diego
Title: "The Subject Supposed to Forget: Rabbinic Formations of the Legal Self"
- Friday, November 6, 2020, 5:00 P.M. (EST)
Ellen Muehlberger, University of Michigan
Title: "Suspicion, Projection, Conviction: Making Enemies in Early Christianity”
Part of ReLACS (Regional Late Antiquity Consortium Southeast) – in collaboration with the University of Missouri and Missouri State University
To register or receive more information, please email Kirstin Harper at KristinHarper@MissouriState.edu
- Friday, November 13, 2020, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Kraemer, Mediterranean Diaspora — contemporary scholarship discussion
- Friday, December 4, 2020, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Gregor Kalas
Title: "Social Services and Architectural Reuse"
Spring 2020
- Friday, January 17, 2020, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Stephen Collins-Elliott
Title: “Transitional Political Identities in Late Antique and Early Medieval Mauretania Tingitana”
UT Humanities Center Seminar Room 2229 Dunford Hall, 2nd floor
- Friday, February 7, 2020, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Jacob Latham
Title: “The New Year in the Late Antique Latin West"
UT Humanities Center Seminar Room 2229 Dunford Hall, 2nd floor
- Friday, February 28, 2020, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Kathryn Langenfeld, Clemson University
Title: “The Historia Augusta & Fabricated Documents”
UT Humanities Center Room 2229 Dunford Hall, 2nd Floor
- Monday, March 9, 2020, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Book Discussion: Shoemaker, The Apocalypse of Empire
UT Humanities Center Room 2229 Dunford Hall, 2nd Floor
- Thursday, April 2, 2020, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Stephen Shoemaker, University of Oregon Canceled
UT Humanities Center Room 2229 Dunford Hall, 2nd Floor
- Wednesday, April 29, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Laura Roesch Canceled
UT Humanities Center Room 2229 Dunford Hall, 2nd Floor
Fall 2019
- Friday, August 30, 2019, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Tina Shepardson
Title: "Remembering the Future: Prophecy and the Final Judgment"
UT Humanities Center Dunford Hall 2nd floor
- Friday, September 27, 2019, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Gregor Kalas
Title: "Charity and Authority in Early Medieval Rome: Santa Maria Antiqua and the Reuse of Ancient Infrastructure"
UT Humanities Center Dunford Hall 2nd floor
- Friday, October 25, 2019, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Book discussion of Sarah Bond
Trade and Taboo: Disreputable Professions in the Late Antique Mediterranean
Marco Seminar Room Greve Hall #615
- Friday, December 6, 2019, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Dennis Trout, University of Missouri
Title: "Poets and Readers in Seventh-Century Rome: Pope Honorius, Lucretius, and the Doors of St. Peter's"
UT Humanities Center Seminar Room 2229 Dunford Hall, 2nd floor
Spring 2019
- Friday, January 18, 2019, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Current Scholarship Workshop: Steven Ellis, The Roman Retail Revolution: The Socio-Economic World of the Taberna (Oxford University Press, 2018)
- Monday, February 4, 2019, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Visiting Scholar Presentation: Steven Ellis, University of Cincinnati
- Monday, February 18, 2019, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Visiting Scholar Presentation: Laura Nasrallah, Harvard University
“The worshipping self, the self in light”
- Thursday, February 28, 2019, 2:30-4:00 P.M.
Visiting Scholar Presentation: Gregory Aldrete, UW-Green Bay
- Friday, March 8, 2019, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Participant Presentation: Jacob Latham
“Sacred Spaces and Sacred Places: Classical Antiquity”
- Monday, April 15, 2019, 1:00-2:30 P.M.
Participant Presentation: Mira Balberg
"The Subject Supposed to Forget: Rabbinic Formations of the Legal Self."
Fall 2018
- Friday, September 7, 2018, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Gregor Kalas
“Reusing Ancient Buildings as Charity Centers in Eighth-Century Rome”
- Friday, September 21, 2018, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Tina Shepardson
“Teach Your Children Well: Mothers, Martyrs, and Monks in Severus of Antioch”
- October 25-26, 2018
Regional Late Antiquity Consortium Symposium (ReLACS) VI- Thursday, October 25, 2018, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Keynote: Kim Bowes, University of Pennsylvania
“The Roman 90%:The Rural Poor in the Roman World
Lindsay Young Auditorium – UT Hodges Library, first floor - Friday, October 26, 2018, 8:45 A.M.-5:00 P.M.
Workshops and Discussions
West Wing – Haslam Business Building
- Thursday, October 25, 2018, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
- Friday, November 9, 2018, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Participant Presentation: Clint Burnett, PhD Boston College
“Temple Sharing and Throne Sharing: A Reconsideration of Σύνναος and Σύνθρονος in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods”
- Friday, November 30, 2018, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Current Scholarship Workshop: Heidi Wendt, At the Temple Gates: The Religion of Freelance Experts in the Early Roman Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016)
Spring 2018
- Friday, January 12, 2018, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Carrie Schroeder, University of the Pacific
"Monastic Genealogies"
- Friday, February 9, 2018, 3:30-5:00 P.M
Gregor Kalas
“Portraits of Late Antique Poets in the Forum of Trajan"
- Monday, March 26, 2018, 1:00-2:30 P.M.
David Potter, University of Michigan
Discussion of Dexippus and the Gothic Invasions: Interpreting the New Vienna Fragment lead by David Potter
- Monday, March 26, 2018, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
David Potter, University of Michigan
Public Lecture: “The Empress Theodora and the Management of Empire”
Lindsay Young Auditorium, Hodges Library
- Friday, April 13, 2018, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Jacob Latham
"Public Performance in Classical Antiquity”
- Friday, May 4, 2018, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Yuliya Minets, University of Alabama
“Languages of Holy Men and Demons Speaking in Tongues”
- Thursday, May 10, 2018, 1:30-3:30 P.M.
Discussion of City of Demons by Dayna Kalleres
Fall 2017
- Friday, August 25, 2017 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Alison Vacca
“A CONQUEST KOINE: The Oral and Written Transmission of Reports on the Islamic Conquest of Duin” - Friday, September 15, 2017, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Discussion of a work-in-progress by Tina Shepardson
“Spinning Violence: Narrating the Persecution of Early Anti-Chalcedonian Saints” - Friday, October 20, 2017
ReLACs at Vanderbilt - Friday, November 10, 2017, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Benjamin Graham, University of Memphis
Discussion of paper, "Modeling Wood Fuel in Ancient Rome," co-written with Ray Van Dam - Friday, December 8, 2017, 12:30-2:00 P.M.
Discussion of What’s Divine about Divine Law? by Christine Hayes
Fall 2016
- Friday, August 26, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Jacob Latham
"Ritual and the Christianization of Urban Space" - Friday, September 16, 3:30-5:00 P.M
Book: Noel Lenksi, Constantine and the Cities, Penn Press, 2016 - Friday, October 21
ReLACs@UKY (Tina Shepardson) - Monday, October 24, 3:00-4:30 P.M.
Susanna Elm, University of California, Berkeley
Seminar
Humanities Center Seminar Room E102 Melrose Hall
5:30 P.M.
Susanna Elm, University of California, Berkeley
Public Talk: "New Romes: Salvian of Marseilles and the Government of God"
Art and Architecture, Room 109 - Friday, December 2
Gregor Kalas
Spring 2016
- Friday, January 22, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Stefan Hodges-Kluck
"Imposter Syndrome in Late Antiquity: The Emperor Julian, Basil of Caesarea, and Gregory of Nazianzus on Unmasking False Intellectuals" - Friday, February 19, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
George Demacopoulos
The Invention of Peter: Apostolic Discourse and Papal Authority in Late Antiquity (UPenn, 2013) - Wednesday, March 9, 3:30-5:00 P.M., Melrose F-203 (*note room)
Tom Heffernan
"Gender and the Sources of Authority in St. Augustine's Sermons on Perpetua and Felicity" - Wednesday, April 20, 3:30-5:00 P.M., Melrose F-203 (*note room)
George Demacopoulos
Fordham University
"War, Violence and the Feast of the Holy Cross in Byzantium" - Friday, May 6, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Gregor Kalas
"Institutional Charity at Santa Maria Antiqua and the Diaconiae of Rome."
Fall 2015
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Friday, September 4, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Jacob Latham
"Rolling out the Red Carpet, Roman-Style: Adventus, occursus and the Christianization of Rome" -
Friday, October 2, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Tina Shepardson
"Representing the Saints: John of Ephesus's Lives and the Polarization of the Chalcedonian Conflict" - October 22-23, 2015 The Third Regional Late Antiquity Consortium (ReLACs)
- October 22, 3:30 P.M.
Michel R. Salzman
University of California, Riverside
"The 'Falls' of Rome: The Transformations of Rome in Late Antiquity"
(Lindsay Young Auditorium, Hodges Library), followed by a reception - October 23, 10:00 A.M. - 4:30 P.M.
Late Antiquity symposium
West Room, Haslam Business Building
presenters include (in alphabetical order):- Adam Bursi, Jimmy and Dee Haslam Postdoctoral Fellow, the Marco Institute, University of Tennessee: "Muhammad's Body and Sacred Space"
- David Hunter, Cottrill-Rolfes Chair of Catholic Studies, University of Kentucky: "Priesthood and Purity: Rethinking the Origins of Clerical Sexual Continence"
- David Michelson, Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University: "Diligent and Angelic Readers: The Material Role of Texts in the Syriac Monastic Tradition"
- Michele Salzman, Professor of History, University of California, Riverside: "Vandalizing Rome: The Sack of 455 and Roman Responses to Crisis"
- Friday, November 13, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Book discussion, Between Empires: Arabs, Romans and Sasanians in Late Antiquity by Greg Fisher (OUP, 2011) - Friday, December 4, 3:30-5:00 P.M.
Douglas Boin
Assistant Professor, St. Louis University
Work in progress