Saturday, October 16, 2010

Continuity and Destruction in Alexander's East. The Transformation of Monumental Space from the Hellenistic Period to Late Antiquity, Univ. of Oxford, 6-7 May 2011

Call for Papers 

Alexander the Great's campaigns from Greece to India brought a vast, disparate region together under a shared cultural umbrella on a scale and at a speed that had not been seen before. This conference will explore the ways in which this cultural hegemony was expressed, or deviated from, by the many peoples and powers that lived in the Hellenized parts of Asia Minor, Egypt, and the Levant - specifically how this expression was manifested in changes and use of monumental space from the early Hellenistic period (4th century BCE) to the Arab conquests (7th century CE). Monumental space is here taken to refer to various public spaces: temples and cult spaces; necropoleis; palaces; military installations, etc. The term space refers to geographical as well as topographical space. Topics for consideration include, but are not limited to: 

  • the veneration and/or restoration of monumental spaces of earlier periods 
  • the destruction and rehabilitation of towns
  • shifting values as expressed through space and monuments 
  • theoretical approaches to the transformation of monumental space 
Proposals should be between 300-500 words and the time allocated for each paper will be 20 minutes. We welcome submissions from postdoctoral fellows, PhD students, and other interested academics. Please send an abstract with your name, title, and institution together with a short CV to one of the three conference organizers no later than January 31, 2011. Any inquiries about the conference should be addressed to the organizers. 

We look forward to receiving your submissions !
Marlena Whiting (marlena.whiting@arch.ox.ac.uk) 
Sujatha Chandrasekaran (sujatha.chandrasekaran@arch.ox.ac.uk) 
Anna Kouremenos (anna.kouremenos@arch.ox.ac.uk)