Conference: Using Images in Late Antiquity, Rome, 13-15 January 2010
The final programme for our forthcoming conference in Rome, “Using Images in Late Antiquity: Identity, Commemoration and Response” is now available. The abstracts for individual papers can also be downloaded here.
The conference is open to the public, no registration necessary.
Using Images in Late Antiquity
Identity, Commemoration, and Response
Organised by the research programme
Art and Social Identities in Late Antiquity, Aarhus University, Denmark
Accademia di Danimarca, Via Omero 18, Roma
13-15 January 2010
The conference will focus on the active role of art and architecture in Late Antiquity and situate the use of images in the period’s dynamic political, religious and social life. The seminar aims to cross interdisciplinary boundaries and arrive at an original and comprehensive view of late antique society. Through images and the responses to them, we ask the invited contributors to focus on questions such as: Why were works of art made? Who commissioned them, and how were they looked at? The papers should try to illuminate the contexts in which works of art were created, and how they were valued and viewed. These questions could be applied to the various places of exchange (sacred and secular) where identities were taken on and transformed, often through the mediation of images.
Programme
Wednesday 13 January
18.00 Keynote lecture
Franz Alto Bauer (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany)
Communicating Sanctity in Late Antiquity: The Case of Hagios Demetrios in Thessaloniki
Rinfresco
Thursday 14 January
9.30 Welcome and introduction to the seminar
Director Erik Bach (Accademia di Danimarca) and organisers
Session 1 – Chair: Franz Alto Bauer
9.45 Sarah E. Bassett (Indiana University, USA)
Late Antique Honorific Sculpture in Constantinople
10.25 Ine Jacobs (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium)
The Last Roman Heyday: Civic Representation around AD 400
11.05 Coffee
Session 2 – Chair: Arnaldo Marcone
11.30 Paolo Liverani (Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy)
Chi parla a chi? Epigrafia monumentale e immagine pubblica in epoca tardoantica
12.10 Stine Birk (Aarhus University, Denmark)
Using Images for Self-Representation on Roman Sarcophagi
12.50 Lunch (speakers only)
Session 3 – Chair: Birte Poulsen
14.30 Eric Varner (Emory University, Atlanta, USA)
Maxentius and Constantine: Images and the Expropriation of Imperial Identity
15.10 John Weisweiler (St John’s College, Cambridge, England, and Istituto Svizzero di Roma)
Aristocrats as Imperial Officials: Imperial Symbols of Authority in the Self-Representation of the Late Roman Aristocracy
15.50 Arnaldo Marcone (Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy)
Alla ricerca di un’identità. Tradizioni classiche nella prima iconografia cristiana
Friday 15 January
Session 4 – Chair: Sarah Bassett
9.00 Trinidad Nogales Basarrate (Museo Nacional de Arte Romano, Mérida, Spain)
Scultura della Tarda Antichità ad Augusta Emerita e nel suo territorio (Hispania):
officine, modelli e circuiti
9.40 Niels Hannestad (Aarhus University, Denmark)
Supply of Sculpture in ‘Stately Homes’ in Late Antiquity
10.20 Donato Attanasio (Istituto di Struttura della Materia del CNR, Rome, Italy)
The newly discovered Göktepe quarries in ancient Caria near Aphrodisias: Use and distribution from the 1st century to Late Antiquity
11.00 Coffee
Session 5 – Chair: Carola Jäggi
11.30 Simon Malmberg (Istituto Svedese di Studi Classici, Rome, Italy)
Above the Gate: Symbols on the gate, and the gate as symbol at Rome, Ravenna and Constantinople
12.10 Hendrik W. Dey (Hunter College of the City University of New York, and Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Washington DC, USA)
At the Intersection of ‘Image’ and ‘Reality’: The Use of Colonnaded Streets in Late Antiquity
12.50 Lunch (speakers only)
Session 6 – Chair: Eric Varner
14.30 Katherine M.A. Dunbabin (McMaster University, Canada)
Myth, Theatre, and Performance: Cultural Identity in Mosaics of the Roman East
15.10 Birte Poulsen (Aarhus University, Denmark)
City Personifications in Mosaics in Late Antiquity
15.50 Troels Myrup Kristensen (Aarhus University, Denmark)
Christian Responses to ’Pagan’ Statuary in Late Antique Scythopolis (Beit She’an)