Society for Late Antiquity
Sessions Sponsored as an Affiliated Group of the Society for Classical Studies
(formerly the American
Philological Association)
2008-present
SLA Five-Year SCS Charter Coordinators
Noel Lenski (2007-2012)
Paul Kimball (2012-2017)
Mark Masterson (2017-2022)
2008
Representing The Peoples of Late Antiquity
Sponsored By The Society For Late Antiquity
Aaron P. Johnson, Organizer
1, David Olster, University of Kentucky
Ethnicity and Pauline Soteriology (20 mins.)
2, Rachel Stroumsa, Duke University
Between Roman and Saracen: Identities in Nessana(20
mins.)
3. Thomas Sizgorich, The University of New Mexico
Then God Sent Us a Prophet: Empire and Memory in
Islamic Late Antiquity (20 mins.)
4. Peter Turner, University of Oxford
Gildas’ De Excidio:A Failure of Ethnogenesis in
Sub-Roman Britain? (20 mins.)
5. Andrew Gillett, Macquarie University
Beyond Barbarian Identity (20 mins.)
2009
New Aproaches
to Rhetoric in Late Antiquity
Sponsored by the Society for
Late Antiquity
Paul Kimball, Organizer
It is a well-known paradox of Greco-Roman culture
that the art of rhetoric successfully retained its privileged role in the
articulation of political, pedagogical, religious, philosophical, and literary
power after Constantine’s adoption of Christianity. Indeed, late antiquity
witnessed a remarkable surge in rhetorical
production both Greek and Latin, and as a result European scholarship has
increasingly come to identify this period as a “Third Sophistic.” While this
formulation stresses synchronic linkages at the expense of diachronic
perspectives, we think it worthwhile nonetheless to examine this phase in the
cultural history of the late empire as a unity.Paul Kimball, Bilkent
UniversityOpening Remarks (10 mins.)
1, Giuseppe La Bua, Università di Roma“La Sapienza”
The Restoration of the Schools of Autun: Rhetoric
and Education in Third-Century Gaul (20 mins.)
2, Heather Waddell Gruber, Ohio University
Enduring Stereotypes: Declamation and the “Problem”
of Marriage (20 mins.)
3. Aaron Wenzel, The Ohio State University
Libanios, Gregory of Nazianzen, and the Ideal of
Athens in Late Antiquity (20 mins.)
4. Riemer Faber, University of Waterloo
The Rhetorical Construction of Space in the
Ekphrases of Nonnus’ Dionysiaca (20 mins.)
5. Federica Ciccolella, Texas A&M University
“Call Me a Sophist”: Procopius of Gaza, His Letters,
and His World (20 mins.)
Robert J. Penella, Fordham University, Respondent
(15 mins.
2010
Patronage in Late Antiquity
Sponsored by the Society
for Late Antiquity
David Olster and Noel Lenski, Organizers
1,Robert Chenault, Willamette University
Patronage Inscriptions in the Houses of Late Roman
Senators (20 mins.)
2,Peter Van Nuffelen, University of Exeter
Episcopal Succession in Constantinople (379-457
A.D.): Elites, Patronage, and Power (20 mins.)
3.Tim Watson, University of California, Irvine
The Bounds of Ambition: Q. Aurelius Symmachus and the
Aristocracy of Service (20 mins.)
4.Ine Jacobs, Leuven University
Recognizing Late Antique Patrons in Material Remains
(20 mins.)
5.Rod Stearn, University of Kentucky
Literary Tropes and Patronage in the Hagiographies of
the Late Antique Judean Wilderness (20 mins.)
Meeting of the Society for Late Antiquity
2011
Late Antique Poetry and Poetics
Sponsored by the Society for Late Antiquity
Suzanne Abrams Rebillard, Cornell University,
Organizer
This panel’s aim is to consider the state of the question of how we now,
twenty years after Michael Roberts’ seminal monograph TheJeweledS tyle, define
a poetics of poetry in late antiquity. The papers in this session span
centuries and bridge the divide between Latin West and Greek East with a view
to sparking discussion on, for example, whether such a poetics can be defined;
if it is limited to poetry or part of a broader aesthetics of the period; and
how it relates to the classical tradition.
1. Kevin Kalish, Colgate University
What does Homer’s Ogygia have to do with Christ’s
Martyrs? (20mins.)
2, Aaron Pelttari, Cornell University
The Quotation: An Intertextual Form Analogous to the Jeweled Style of
Late Antiquity (20mins.)
3. Cillian
O’Hogan,University of Toronto
Prudentius and the Limits of Art (20mins.)
4. Catherine Conybeare, Bryn Mawr College
The Poetics o fLaughter in the Cena Cypriani (20mins.
2012
Asceticism and Monasticism in Late Antiquity
Sponsored by the Society for Late Antiquity
Richard Westall, Pontifica Università Gregoriana,
Organizer
Michele Renee Salzman, University of California,
Riverside, Chair
1, Steff Coppieters, University of Ghent
Fashioning the Perfect Life: Abstaining and Obeying (20 mins.)
2, Sarah Insley, Harvard University
Writing an Ascetic Landscape: Monasticism in Late
Antique Constantinople (20 mins.)
3. Elizabeth Platte, University of Michigan
Administration of Monasteries in Late Antiquity: The
Case of the Monastery of Phoibammon (20 mins.)
4. Mary Frances Williams, Independent Scholar
St. Ambrose and his Ideas of Asceticism in De
officiis 3.1-7 (20mins.)
2013
Letters in Late Antiquity
Sponsored by the Society for Late Antiquity
Noel Lenski, University of Colorado–Boulder,
Organizer
We are fortunate to have more letters and letter
collections from Late Antiquity than from the rest of Greco-Roman antiquity
combined. These offer a wealth of information on personal relations, political
alliances, and religious concerns. They also open a broad window onto the
literary ambitions of their authors, reflecting as they do the power this genre
exerted over the formation of literary personae and their performance on the
cultural stage. This panel will explore why this form of expression suited the
late antique world so well and what these letters and letter collections have
to teach us.
1, Raffaella Cribiore, New York University
Letters versus Orations: A Question of Genre (15
mins.)
2, Zachary Yuzwa, Cornell University
Reading Genre in Sulpicius Severus’ Letters (15
mins.)
3. Jonathan McLaughlin, University of MichiganB
ridging the Cultural Divide? Letters between Civilian
and Military Elites in the Fourth Century (15 mins.)
4. Adam Schor, University of South Carolina
Enter the Bishop: Late Roman Epistolary Networks and
the Effects of Clerical Office (15 mins.)
5. Scott Bradbury, Smith College
Patronage and Networking in Libanius’ Letters
2014
The Role of “Performance” in
Late Antiquity
Sponsored by the Society for
Late Antiquity
Ralph Mathisen, University
of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Organizer
1, Yuliya Minets, Catholic University of
AmericaWhy Are We Told Which Language Was Spoken? Performative Strategies
and Languages in Christian
Narratives of Late Antiquity (15 mins.)
2, Zeev Weiss, The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem
Actors and Theaters, Rabbis
and Synagogues: The Use of Public Performances in Shaping Communal Behavior in Late
Antique Palestine (15 mins.)
3. Mathilde Cambron-Goulet,
Université de Montréal
Sharing Letters, Sharing
Friendship: Public Readings in Synesius (15 mins.)
4. Martin Reznick, New York
University
Performance and Petitions: A
Game of Justice in Roman Egypt (15 mins.)
5. Audrey Becker, Université
de Lorraine
The Performance of
Diplomacy: Verbal and Non-verbal Communication at the Imperial Court of the
Late Roman Empire (15 mins.)
Danuta Shanzer, Universität
Wien, Chair and Respondent
2015
Travel, Travelers and Traveling in Late Antique
Literary Culture
Sponsored by the Society for Late Antiquity
Cam Grey, University of Pennsylvania, Organizer
Narratives of travel underpin a multitude of genres
and texts in late antiquity. Our sources also suggest that an extraordinary
variety of individuals walked or rode the roads of the Roman world in the
period, notwithstanding the dangers that, we are told, attended such travel.
The papers in this session engage with a range of different literary texts and
material objects to explore questions about the role of travel as a structuring
device for authors and their communities to employ, a metaphor for them to
access, and a tool for them to use in shaping their individual and collective
identities.
Cam Grey, University of PennsylvaniaIntroduction (5
mins.)
1, Colin Whiting, University of California,
Riverside
Exile and Identity: The Origins of the Luciferian
Community (20 mins.)
2, Alex Petkas, Princeton University
Philosophy and Travel in the Letters of Synesius (20
mins.)
3. David Natal Villazala, Austrian Academy of
Sciences
Symbolic Territories: Relic Translation and
Aristocratic Competition in Victricius of Rouen (20 mins.)
Edward Watts, University of California, San Diego,
Respondent (20 mins.)
General discussion (20 mins.
2016
The Emperor Julian
Sponsored by the Society for Late Antiquity
Gavin Kelly, The University of Edinburgh, Organizer
Although Julian ruled as sole emperor for under two years, his reign is
among the best attested periods of ancient history, not least through his own
writings; his rejection of Christianity made him the object of intense debate
among contemporaries. This panel ex-plores the surprisingly peaceful transfer
of power after Constantius’ death in November 361, Julian’s self-definition as
a philosopher in comparison to his Christian contemporary Basil, the importance
of Attic oratory for understanding Julian’s Misopogon, and how Ammianus
Marcellinus created a ‘Western Julian’ for Latin readers, a generation after his
hero’s death.
1, Kevin Feeney, Yale University
The Making of the Emperor: Julian and the Succession
of 361 (20 mins.)
2, Stefan Hodges-Kluck, University of Tennessee,
Knoxville
Julian and Basil of Caesarea on Impostor
Philosophers (20 mins.)
3. Joshua J. Hartman, University of Washington
Julian as Citizen: Attic Oratory and the Misopogon
(20 mins.)
4. Alan Ross, University College Dublin
In Search of a Western Julian: Ammianus and the
Latin Tradition (20 mins.)
Susanna Elm, University of California, Berkeley,
Response (20 mins.)
General Discussion (10 mins.)
2017
Narrating the Self: Autobiography in Late Antiquity
Sponsored by the Society for Late Antiquity
Eric Hutchinson, Hillsdale College, Organizer
1. Eric Hutchinson, Hillsdale College, Introduction
2, Ian Fielding, University of Oxford
The Conversion of Ovid in Early Christian poetry
3. Moyses Marcos, University of California,
Riverside
Fighting a Civil War through Autobiography: The
Emperor Julian’s Epistle to the Athenians and the Promotion and Consoli-dation
of Roman Imperial Authority and Legitimacy
4. Ryan Brown-Haysom, University of Auckland
Interiority and Selfhood in Fifth-Century
Autobiography
5. Joshua Benjamins, University of Notre Dame
Fragmentation and Recreation: An Ontology of Fluctus
and Defluere in Augustine’s Confessions
6. David Ungvary, Dumbarton Oaks
Ennodius’s Eucharisticon and the Poetics of Ascetic
Autobiography
2018
“Where does it End?”: Limits on Imperial Authority
in Late Antiquity
Sponsored by the Society for Late Antiquity
Jacqueline Long, Loyola University Chicago,
Organizer
No other mortal man commanded more authority in
empire. The late-Roman emperor was source of law, head of government, victor of
his armies’ wars (whether or not he led in battle), exemplar and enforcer of
orthodoxy even after repudiating his ancient presidency over state cults,
because public order relied on him. How was such a man to “remember [he was]
mortal”? If the famous triumphal counterpoint was no more than a Christian
interjection to the tradition of ceremony (Beard, Roman Triumph [2007]
85-92), nevertheless it had currency amid the ideological and historical
changes of the later Empire. Its question generalizes: what limits on imperial
power were recognized, after Roman imperialism proved its geographical limit?
1, Jacqueline Long, Loyola University Chicago,
Introduction
2, Shawn Ragan, University of California, Riverside
The Imperial Adventus: Evolving Dialogues between
Emperor and City in the Third Century C.E.
3. Craig Caldwell, Appalachian State University
Vetranio and the Limits of Legitimacy in the
Danubian Provinces
4. Jeremy Swist, University of Iowa
The Kings as Imperial Models in the Fourth-Century
Epitomators
5. Matt Chalmers, University of Pennsylvania
Samaritans, Regional Coalition, and the Limits of
Imperial Authority in Late Antique Palestine
2019
Late Antique Textualities
Sponsored by the Society for Late Antiquity
1, Colin Whiting, American School of Classical
Studies at Athens, Introduction
2, Alan Ross, Columbia University
Text and Paratext: Reading the Emperor Julian via
Libanius
3. Christopher Blunda, University of California,
Berkeley
Gennadius and Jerome: Discontinuity in the De Viris Illustribus
Tradition
4. Andrew Horne, University of Chicago
Why Is There So Much Varro in the City of God?
5. Jacob Latham, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Romanitas between “Pagans” and Christians: Christian
Invective against Late Antique Roman Traditional Religions
The Society for Late Antiquity:
BUSINESS MEETING Saturday, January 4, 2020
2021
New Environmental History: Promise and Pitfalls
Organized by Mark Letteney, University of Southern
California, and Alex Petkas, California State University, Fresno)
1. Henry Gruber (Harvard University)
Systems Change without Demographic Collapse?
Trans-Mediterranean Trade and the Justinianic Pandemic
2. Krešimir Vuković (Catholic University of
Croatia / Hrvatsko Katoličko Sveučilište)
The River and the City: The Tiber as a Case Study in
Roman Ecohistory
3. David Pickel (Stanford University)
Artifacts as Exposures: Malarial Landscapes in Late
Roman Italy
Kristina Sessa (The Ohio State University), Response