Art and Social Identities in Late Antiquity

Troels Myrup Kristensen will defend his PhD dissertation “Archaeology of Response: Christian Destruction, Mutilation and Transformation of Pagan Sculpture in Late Antiquity” on Wednesday 16 December 1-4 pm.

The official opponents are:
Dr. Peter Stewart, Reader in Classical Art and its Heritage, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, UK.

Dr. Eric Varner, Associate Professor, Departments of Classics and Art History, Emory University, Atlanta, USA.

Mag. art. Birte Poulsen, Associate Professor, Institute of Anthropology, Archaeology and Linguistics, Aarhus University (chair)

Aarhus University Conference Centre, Byg. 1421, Mødelokale 2

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.
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