22-25 MARCH 2017
Yale University
Organizers: Jan-Willem Drijvers, Noel Lenski
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twelfth Biennial Shifting
Frontiers in Late Antiquity Conference
THURSDAY,
MARCH 23
10:00 Registration begins
1:00-1:20 Welcome
1:30 – 4:00 SESSION 1 (State I) Law, State, and Society in the Fifth
Century
Sebastian Schmidt-Hoffner (Eberhard-Karls-Universität, Tübingen – Featured
Speaker) An Empire of the Best: Antimonarchical discourse and the imperial
elite in the 5th c. East
Benet Salway (University College London) The legal and political
significance of the publication of the Theodosian Code in the western empire
Hagith Sivan (University of Kansas, Lawrence) The Codification Craze: Why
the Fifth Century?
Matthijs Wibier (Università degli Studi di Pavia) Reconsidering the law
school in Berytus (and beyond)
Bronwen Neil (Australian Catholic University) Pope Gelasius’ Theory of Law
and its Implementation at the End of the Fifth Century
4:00 – 4:30 Refreshment Break
4:30-6:00 SESSION 2: (Identity I) Contests over Cultural and Ethnic
Identity
Richard Payne (University of Chicago) The Armenian Rebellion of 451
Reinterpreted: A Eurasian Perspective
Sara Fascione (Università degli Studi di Napoli) Othering in transition:
Riothamus, rex Brittonum in fifth-century Gaul
N. Kivilcim Yavuz (University of Copenhagen) Looking Back at the Fifth
Century: Revisiting the Origins of the Franks
6:00 – 7:00 Reception sponsored by Archaia: Yale Program for the Study
of Ancient and Premodern Cultures and Societies
7:00 – 8:00 KEYNOTE LECTURE
RALPH MATHISEN (University of Illinois Urbana Champaign) The End of the
Western Roman Empire: Barbarian Invasions or Civil Wars?
FRIDAY, MARCH 24
8:00 – 8:30 Breakfast
8:30 – 10:30 SESSION 3: (Literature I) Letters and Poems
Ed Watts (University of California, San Diego – Featured Speaker) Hypatia
in the Letter Collection of Synesius
Felix Maier (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg) Same but different – The
innovative character of Claudian’s concept of imperial rule for the fifth
century
Gavin Kelly (University of Edinburgh) The nature of Sidonius’s letter
collection
Veronika Egetenmeyr (Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel) Barbarians
transformed: The construction of Identity in the Epistles of Sidonius
Apollinaris
10:30-11:00 Morning Break [Coffee, Tea, and Light Snacks]
11:00 – 12:30 SESSION 4A: (Archaeology I) History and the Material
Record
Zeev Weiss (Hebrew University, Jerusalem) Defining Limits in Times of
Shifting Borders: Jewish Life in Fifth-Century Palestine
Galit Noga-Banai (Hebrew University, Jerusalem) The Rebuilding of S. Paolo
Fuori le mura: An Urban Watershed in the Visual Orientation of Rome towards
Jerusalem
Patrick Périn and Bailey Young (Musée d'Archéologie nationale, Paris / Northern
Illinois University) Frankish Expansion in Belgica II and beyond through
the Reign of Clovis: History and Archaeology
11:00 – 12:30 SESSION 4B: (Environment) Climate and Technology in
Transformation
Cam Grey (University of Pennsylvania – Featured Speaker) Climate Change and
Agrarian Change: Questions of Scale, Coincidence, and Causality
Kyle Harper (University of Oklahoma) Framing the Fifth-Century Climate
Dominic Solly (Open University) A Reexamination of Roman gold mining
technology
12:30 – 1:30 Lunch Break
1:30 – 4:00 SESSION 5: (Religion I) Religious Authority and Regionalism
in Transformation
Michelle Salzman (University of California, Riverside – Featured Speaker) Title
TBA
Maijastina Kahlos (University of Helsinki) Shifting Sacrifices?
Fifth-century Developments in Ritual Life
Hartmut Leppin (Goethe University, Frankfurt) Rabbula of Edessa: Asserting
Episcopal Authority in a World of Diversity
Tiggy McLaughlin (University of Michigan) Fifth-Century Church “Reformers”
and the Transformation of Christian Practice in Gaul
Jamie Wood (University of Lincoln) Transforming religious authority: Making
and breaking bishops in fifth-century Spain and southern Gaul
4:00 – 4:30 Break
4:30 – 6:30 SESSION 6: (Archaeology II) The Archaeology of an Empire in
Transformation
Philipp von Rummel (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Berlin – Featured
Speaker) Title TBA
Young Richard Kim (Calvin College) The Little Island That Could: Cyprus in
the Fifth Century
Annewies Van Den Hoek & John Hermann (Harvard University / Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston) From Bowls to Lamps: Migration of motifs in African Red Slip
ware
Lucy Grig (University of Edinburgh) Society, economy and cultural change in
fifth-century Provence: a micro-regional approach
6:30 – 7:30 Reception
7:30 – 8:30 KEYNOTE LECTURE
KATE COOPER (University of Manchester)
SATURDAY, MARCH 25
8:00 – 8:30 Breakfast
8:30 – 10:30 SESSION 7A: (Identity II) Identity and Alterity in Fifth
Century Religious Contexts
Beatrice Caseau (Université de Paris IV, Sorbonne – Featured Speaker) From
ascetics to monastics: Changing perceptions of monks and nuns in legal texts
and hagiography
Chrysavgi Athanasiou (Université de Paris IV, Sorbonne) Children and maternal
kinship in the Theodosian Code
Julie Kelto Lillis (Trent University) Title TBA
Peter Riedlberger (Otto-Friedrich-Universität, Bamberg) Uses of Alterity:
the case of the so-called Donatists
8:30 – 10:30 SESSION 7B: (State II) Gallic and African Power Structures
in Flux
Merle Eisenberg (Princeton University) The Burgundian Revolution and the
Transformation of Governance in the Late Antique West
Glendon L. McDorman (Princeton University) War, Hagiography, and the
Transformation of Episcopal Authority in the Fifth Century
Marie Roux (CNRS / Aix-Marseille Université) Administrative transitions in
Gaul during the second half of the fifth century: the example of the Visigothic
Kingdom through the Breviary of Alaric
Paolo Tedesco (University of Notre Dame / Austrian Academy of Sciences) State
Formation and Economic Revival in Vandal Africa 440-540 CE
10:30-11:00 Morning Break [Coffee, Tea, and Light Breakfast
Foods]
11:00-12:30 SESSION 8: (State III) Rulership in an Age of
Transformation
Sarah Bühler (Eberhard-Karls-Universität, Tübingen) Maintaining an Empire
in Times of Crisis: The Early Years of the Reign of Valentinian III
Meaghan McEvoy (Macquarie University, Sydney) Leo II, Zeno and the transfer
of Roman imperial rule from a son to his father in 474 AD
Hans-Ulrich Wiemer (Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen) From Odovacar
to Theoderic: merely a change of personnel?
12:30 – 2:00 Lunch
2:00 – 3:30 SESSION 9B: (Archaeology III) Sites of Transformation: The
Archaeology of the Fifth Century
Anna Flückiger (Universität Basel) Blind Dating: Towards a Chronology of
Fifth-Century Material Culture in Augusta Raurica
Gloriana Pace (Università degli Studi di Pisa) Aiano - Torraccia di Chiusi
(San Gimignano, Siena): a Roman villa in Central Italy during Late Antiquity
(4th - 5th c. AD)
Raymond Brulet (Université de Louvain) Tournai: L’enjeu politique d’une
ville au Ve siècle entre survie et installation du pouvoir franc
2:00 – 3:30 SESSION 9B: (Identity II) Understandings of Authority
Hajnalka Tamas (University of Exeter) From Prosecutor to Arbitrator of
Orthodoxy
Danielle Reid (Cornell University) Court and Coin: The Roman Imperial Image
of Theoderic the Great
Lennart Lehmhaus (Freie Universität Berlin) Transfer and Transformation:
knowledge, tradition and authority in the Talmudic century
3:30 – 4:00 Break
4:00 – 5:30 SESSION 10: (State III) Collective Assemblies and Shifting
Loci of Power
John Weisweiler (University of Maryland, College Park) The Domestication of
the Senate, the Rise of the Peasantry and the Fall of the Roman Empire
Christian R. Raschle (Université de Montréal) Representative government in
the fifth century: the provincial assemblies
Daniëlle Slootjes (Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen) Administrative and/or
church units? On the meaning of dioceses in the fifth century A.D.
7:00 Shifting Frontiers XII Conference Banquet
SUNDAY, MARCH 26
8:00 – 8:30 Breakfast
8:30 – 10:30 SESSION 11: (Religion II) Money, Law, and Knowledge in the
Transformation of Religion
Spyridon Loumakis (Concordia University, Montreal) Antilytron: Paying
Ransom in Exchange for Salvation
Maria Doerfler (Yale University) Lives and afterlives: Changing visions of
souls and their ransoms in fifth century Syriac Christianity
Tomasso Mari (Otto-Friedrich-Universität, Bamberg) “On account of the
difference of language”: Greek, Latin, translation and re-translation in the
Acts of the Council of Chalcedon (451)
Christopher Beeley (Yale University) The Chalcedonian Coup
10:30 – 11:00 Morning Break
11:00 – 1:00 SESSION 12: (Literature II) Continuity and Change in Genre
and Metaphor
Aaron Johnson (Lee University) Apologetics for a New World? Cyril and
Theodoret’s Transformation of a Genre
Paola Moretti (Università degli Studi di Milano) Pompeius’ commentary on
Donatus’ Ars: the hard task of being a grammarian during an age of changes
Shane Bjornlie (Claremont McKenna College) The Sack of Rome in 410 as
histoire imaginaire
Jason Moralee (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) The Anatomy of an
Anecdote: 455, Geiseric, and the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus
1:00 – 2:30 Farewell Lunch - Meeting of the Society for Late Antiquity
2:30 – 5:00 Tour of Yale Museums