CALL FOR PAPERS
Fall and Rise of the Roman World c. 200–700 CE
XIX Finnish Symposium on Late Antiquity
Tvärminne, Finland, 15-16 October, 2010
The XIX Finnish Symposium on Late Antiquity will be organized on October 15-16, 2010. The aim of the symposium is to bring together students and scholars with an interest in Late Antiquity from a variety of universities and disciplines. This year, we explore the aspects of depression, recovery and renaissance related to the every-day life, but suggestions for papers dealing with other topics will also be considered. Our main aim is to stimulate interdisciplinary dialogue between philology, archaeology, history, theology and other disciplines that deal with Late Antiquity. Geographically, the focus of the symposium is on the Mediterranean world.
This year’s symposium features three specially invited speakers:
Kate Cooper (Manchester): The transformation of the Roman Household at the end of antiquity
Chris Wickham (Oxford): Rural realities: Spain and Sicily around 600
Leslie Brubaker (Birmingham): Embedding sacred images in everyday life: representation and transformation of culture in Byzantium
There is space for a maximum of eight more papers. If you wish to deliver a paper, please send a short abstract (of less than 300 words) by June 15th, to Dr. Ville Vuolanto (ville.vuolanto@uta.fi). Applicants will be informed by July whether they have been accepted. We have reserved 30 minutes for each presentation, including discussion following the paper. Therefore, we recommend limiting the papers to 15 minutes. For each paper, we aim at finding a commentator for a first response of about 5 minutes.
The symposium will be organized in the premises of a zoological research station operated by the University of Helsinki at a beautiful location at Tvärminne on the southern coast of Finland. Its organizers are the Department of World Cultures of the University of Helsinki together with an interdisciplinary organizing committee (see below). The seminar fee of 50 euros will cover transportation from Helsinki to Tvärminne and back, as well as accommodation, meals, coffee and sauna at Tvärminne. However, we are not able to cover the costs for traveling to Helsinki first, or accommodation there. Especially for the PhD students it is possible to apply for a reduced conference fee of 25 €. Registration for the conference will start August 30th.
The Finnish Symposium on Late Antiquity is organized annually since 1992. It started as a Finnish-language seminar for postgraduate students. However, over the years, more and more papers were presented by established scholars. Moreover, in many years, a few well-known scholars were invited from abroad, and the language of the symposium was changed to English, thus making it more and more international. This year, for the second time, we do not only have a few specially invited guests from abroad, but we invite suggestions for papers from anyone who is interested. In keeping with the symposium’s traditions, we encourage not only senior, but also junior scholars and postgraduate students to participate.
(Please, feel free to forward this message to any relevant forum.)
The organizing committee,
Maijastina Kahlos, PhD, Classical philology, University of Helsinki
Ville Vuolanto, PhD, History, University of Tampere
Päivi Vähäkangas, MA, Biblical Studies, University of Helsinki.