Graduate Workshop

January 13th 2021 5-7 PM

Carlos Noreña – University of California Berkeley

Geography and Urbanization in the Roman and Han Empires

Discussion of Graduates’ Projects:

• Alessandro Magnani, The western influences on Kushan Empire kingship
• Federica Calabrese, Recreating divinity: performing magic beyond borders of Christianity

January 14th 2021 5.30-8 PM

Discussion of Graduates’ Projects

• Silvia Geraci, Connectivity: Rome and Greece between the 2nd cent.  and the first half of the 1st cent. BC

• Fabrizio Lusani, Ostraka from Maximianon: writing in a Roman fort of the Eastern Egyptian Desert in the 2nd cent. CE
• Fernanda Maffei, Cicerone al confine: studi sulla diffusione delle orazioni ciceroniane nell'impero tra antichità e tarda antichità

Christian Raschle – Université de Montreal

New provincial borders and old privileges – the perfect ingredients for church conflicts

January 15th 2021 5-7 PM

Sandra Gambetti – College of Staten Island City University of New York

Egypt in Transition: Intercultural and political translation between IV and II cent. BC The case of the Satrap Stela

Discussion of Graduates’ Projects

• Carlo Emilio Biuzzi, La frontiera porosa di Sapur II, studio comparato di centri urbani sul limes orientale (Edessa, Nisibi, Dura-Europos, Martyropolis)
• Emiliano Antonio Panciera, Permeable Élite: Research on the networks of connections between Roman gentes and foreign élites in the Italy of the 4th and 3rd centuries BC.

In a nutshell. For those who embark the academic career, the necessity of applying for positions by submitting research projects increases. We believe that discussing projects in a collective network of tenured and non-tenured scholars from different academic environments can help improving one’s projects and make them more meaningful in an international context. This workshop aims at selecting a number of research proposals and have them peer-reviewed among participants and evaluated by an international team of senior scholars, in order to assess their strengths, their weaknesses and their potential.

The borders within, the borders without.

Social, historical, linguistic and geographic frontiers

in the ancient and medieval Mediterranean basin. Permeability and connectivity

The ancient Mediterranean is a fragmented system characterized by a high degree of connectivity. The formation, consolidation, decline and disruption of communications among regions, microecologies, individuals, peoples and polities is a longue durée phenomenon; against this background borders of cultural, political, social or economic nature come into being. The peculiar, dichotomic nature of the Mediterranean lies in the co-existence of networks and barriers. There are borders and frontiers within the Mediterranean and without the Mediterranean. The boundaries thus marked, however, do not hinder movements and connections: they influence communication and its historical manifestations by imposing specific ‘rules of the game’.

We are interested in discussing PhD and Post-Doc projects of students eager to investigate intercultural exchanges (connection, hybridization, conflict) within the Mediterranean and between the Mediterranean and other geographic macro-areas in Asia, Africa and Europe, including processes of construction and consolidation of collective identities as well as borders of cultural, linguistic, geographical or other nature. At the same time we welcome projects about the formation and transformation of spaces of interconnection and environmental frontiers commercial networks, interaction of ecological and economic systems.

Study proposals may also address intersection of identities, alterities and differences within the social structures, and the study of socio-economic and power inequalities.

The period discussed is ca. 800 BCE – 800 CE, but draft projects could also deal with other historical periods and settings, which relate to the ancient world through reception/heritage/contrast of models or other kind of connection. A significant comparative approach between different historical contexts of the ancient world and critical periodization is potentially relevant as well.