APECSS Newsletter April 2018

Greetings from the Editor Dear APECSS colleagues in the fields of early Christian studies and Patristics, This is a special addendum to APECSS 2018 February edition regarding the information about matters in the field of New Testament and Patristic Studies that I have received from my friends after sending you the Newsletter in February. Thanks a lot for your enduring commitment to APECSS activities. We earnestly hope to see many of you at the 12th APECSS annual conference held in September at Okayama University, Japan. Please send all items of interest for inclusion in the newsletter to me. The next issue will be released in November 2018. Naoki Kamimura Research Fellow, Tokyo Gakugei University 1. APECSS 12th Annual Conference in Japan Call for Papers Health, Well-being, and Old Age in Early Christianity Okayama University Thursday, 13 — Saturday, 15 September 2018 The Asia-Pacific Early Christian Studies Society invites proposals for papers to be delivered at its twelfth annual conference to be held at Tsushima Campus, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan, from Thursday morning, 13 September to Saturday afternoon, 15 September, 2018, convened by Kazuhiko Demura. Papers are 30 minutes in duration (20 minutes delivery and 10 minutes for discussion). The Society welcomes all proposals that explore any theme relevant to the early Christian world from the New Testament to the end of Late Antiquity, and especially those that focus on this year’s theme: Health, Well-being, and Old Age in Early Christianity. Early Christians were conscious of the impact of health and ageing on well-being. Physical old age could be both a blessing and curse. Health could be both desired and despised. They held a holistic concept of the notion of well-being, understanding it not only in physical, but spiritual terms also. In many instances well-being was viewed through the perspective of eschatology and soteriology, often in an ascetical or psychagogic context, with many Christian writers asserting the superiority of the spiritual over the physical. The relationship between body and soul, sickness and health, youth and maturity, sin and grace, was key to the promotion of a true understanding of Christian well-being. At the same time one should not dismiss insights early Christians provided on the physical aspects of health and old age. A 150-word abstract should be sent by 30 April, 2018 to Prof. Kazuhiko Demura (mailto:demura@okayamau.ac.jp) and Dr. Geoffrey D. Dunn (mailto:geoffrey.dunn@acu.edu.au). Further questions can be addressed to Prof. Demura. Other proposals besides the conference theme are most welcome. Papers are presented in English (or other languages as appropriate). Our practice is that conference presenters distribute copies of their papers (minus notes) in English to participants to minimise language difficulties. Presenters need to bring their own copies for distribution. Registration forms and further details is available on the Society’s website: https://apecss.wixsite.com/ apecss. There will be an opportunity for some cultural event in Okayama on Thursday afternoon. A conference dinner will be held on Friday 14 September. 2. APECSS 2019 social gathering at Oxford This will be the fourth time in our history, 2019 is an Oxford year when members of APECSS and friends will have a social gathering to renew friendships in August at a venue in Oxford. 3. 19th UNISA Classics Colloquium in collaboration with the ARC Discovery Project, ‘Memories of Utopia: Destroying the past to create the future (300-650 CE)’ Making and Unmaking Memory in the Ancient World, from the 7th Century BCE to the 7th Century CE First Call for Papers Pretoria 7-10 November 2018 We are pleased to announce the first call for papers for the annual UNISA Classics Colloquium in collaboration with the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project: “Memories of Utopia: Destroying the Past to Create the Future (300-650 CE)”. The conference aims to explore a wide variety of aspects relating to the building, dismantling and reconstructing of memory and reputation across the various cultures bordering on the ancient Mediterranean, and over a wide time-frame. We know that memory and history are not fixed, objective occurrences, but are subjective representations of reality, and we can see evidence of this in the way in which those items which transmit memory are manipulated and used throughout antiquity. Memory and history are often reconstructed in light of various utopian (or dystopian) ideals, thereby also creating a vision of the future that is based on strategic manipulations of the past. The unmaking and reconstitution of memory may also occur through violent means, whether through discursive and/or “physical” violence, which is an important aspect for further investigation. The proposed conference aims to create fruitful interaction between the disciplines of Classics, Early Christian Studies, Late Antiquity and Byzantine Studies, by exploring both ancient written material and/or ancient material culture. The conference theme thus offers plenty of areas for further exploration, of which the following fields are a sample: • Methodological considerations on the use of Memory Studies and Utopia Studies in the field of Ancient History • From damnatio to renovatio memoriae. The mutilation, transformation and/or re-use of items representing the past such as buildings, statues and iconography • • • The effects of iconoclasm and intersectional violence Spolia: from the narrative of power to repurposing of architectural fragments The importance of ancestry in the ancient world, for example in Greek or Roman portraiture and busts and the recutting of busts to new portraits • • • • • • Continuity and change in historiography – debates on the past among the ancient historians The making and breaking of reputations, e.g. techniques and strategies (and their effectiveness) in ancient biography and hagiography Memory, utopia and ancient religion Utopias and the building of collective identities Building genealogies and ancestry, and aristocratic genealogy-competition and rivalry The purpose of evoking memory though Classical reception Paper proposals (approximately 300 words) are invited for papers of 30 minutes debating current issues and problems on any aspect of the above theme. Abstracts and titles should include your name and university affiliation, and should be submitted to either: • Prof Martine De Marre (Ancient History and Classics) at dmarrmea@unisa.ac.za or dmarrmea@gmail.com • Prof Chris de Wet (Early Christian Studis & Late Antiquity) at chrisldw@gmail.com Deadline for abstracts: 30 June 2018 We look forward to hearing from you, and please do not hesitate to contact us at the addresses provided above if you have any queries. 3 Future conferences and workshops A. International Conference on the Byzantine Liturgy and the Jews Call for Papers International Conference Sibiu 9-11 July 2019 Anti-Jewish elements have persisted in the Byzantine liturgy for over a thousand years in areas under the influence of the Eastern Christian Empire. These elements have spread through translation from Byzantium to all countries and cultures which worship today according to the Byzantine rite. Despite the profound theological and liturgical changes that have taken place in the second half of the 20th century in Western Christianity, hymns that were composed in the polemical context of the 8th -9th centuries are still used today in Eastern countries and in the Christian Orthodox Communities of the diaspora. The conference with the topic Byzantine litury and the Jews addresses the issue of liturgical anti-Judaism from various perspectives, in order to provide the necessary tools so that we can better understand this reality: Historical-criticism – which hymns fall within this discussion? When were these texts included in the liturgy and what were the overall social and political contexts in which they were written? What differences can one identify between original versions and translated ones and what are the aspects that have led to innovation in translating these texts? And how do texts with Byzantine anti-Jewish elements differ from analogous texts from the Syriac, Coptic, Armenian and Georgian traditions? Patristic and liturgical approach – which is the role of hymns within the liturgical structure? What is the relationship between hymnography and homilies and other patristic writings? To what extent can one identify a patristic origin of certain anti-Jewish topoi and how did this very fact assure their transmission in worship? And what can be said about the image of the Jews in Byzantine iconography and their possible relation with hymnographic texts? Theological approach – what kind of relationship is there between biblical statements regarding Israel and anti- Jewish hymnography? What is truly anti-Jewish in the Byzantine rite? Which are the criteria that would guide us today in evaluating liturgical texts from this perspective? Socio-cultural impact – to what extent can one follow how these hymns reflect, consolidate and modify the mentalities of given religious communities? Presentation abstracts of no more than 200 words should be sent to:mailto:cces@ecum.ro Deadline: July 1, 2018. Papers may be presented in English and German. Conference proceedings will be published in the PeterLang’s Edition Israelogie series. Financial support may be available upon consultation with the organisers. B. The Thirteenth Biennial meeting of Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity “Communal Responses to Local Disaster: Economic, Environmental, Political, Religious” March 14-17, 2019 @ Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, California The Society for Late Antiquity is pleased to announce the thirteenth biennial meeting of Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity, to be held at Claremont McKenna College, in Claremont, California. Specialists in art and archaeology, literature and philology, history and religious studies, working on topics from the 3rd to the 8th century CE, are invited to submit paper proposals. Scholars with any related interest are invited to attend. The 2019 meeting will examine the impact of disasters on late-antique communities, including their susceptibility to disaster, the means by which they coped, and factors that increased resilience and facilitated recovery from disasters. In order to foster the thematic breadth and interdisciplinary perspective for which Shifting Frontiers is known, we invite papers concerned with the full range of traumatic events, and also long-term processes, that could distress communities: economic, environmental, political and religious. The aim of this conference is to move beyond the descriptive and stimulate analytical and theoretical approaches to understanding how distressed communities behaved in the short and long term. Local communities developed daily and seasonal rhythms to mitigate vulnerabilities and fragility. The dread of disaster shaped the late-antique psyche and, in some ways, the cultural landscape of communities. And disasters of various kinds had a wide range of impacts, depending upon severity and the nature of communal resilience. We encourage papers to consider the extent to which the economic, cultural, political or religious resources of communities (or their lack) determined levels of susceptibility, impact, response or resilience. To what extent do late-antique sources acknowledge vulnerability and fragility? What mechanisms created durability and resilience? What were the emotional and intellectual responses to disaster? Does an awareness of the psychological impact of fragility and disaster alter our interpretation of various forms of evidence in Late Antiquity? We are also very pleased to announce that the keynote lectures this year will be given by Kyle Harper (University of Oklahoma) and Laura Nasrallah (Harvard University) Conference details may be found at https://www.cmc.edu/history/shifting-frontiers-in-late-antiquity Potential topics include: • Economic trauma and its impact (fiscal, commercial, etc.) • Environmental distress and disaster relief (volcanos, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.) • Attitudes toward the environment owing to fragility and the potential for disaster • Alimentary and agricultural disasters (famine, drought, interrupted shipping) • Urban disasters (fires, rioting, siege) • Military disasters on the battlefield • Philosophical and ethical notions of mortality, inevitability and causation connected to disaster • Rhetorical exploitation and literary responses to, or explorations of disaster • Philological footprints in language and idiom related to disaster • Representations of, and psychological responses to disaster in art • Archaeological and architectural evidence of disasters • Religious explanations of disaster and liturgical and cultic responses • Differentiation between sudden, cataclysmic and long-term, slow moving disasters • The memory of specific events Proposals for 20-minute presentations should clearly explain the relationship of the paper to the conference theme, describe the evidence to be examined and offer tentative conclusions. Abstracts of no more than 500 words (not including optional bibliography) should be submitted by October 1, 2018. Please submit abstracts as a Word document attached to an email to both Shane Bjornlie (sbjornlie@cmc.edu) and Michelle Berenfeld (michelle_berenfeld@pitzer.edu). Please do not embed proposals in the text of the email. The conference steering committee will review all proposals, starting October 1, with accepted papers receiving notification by November 15. Due to budgetary constraints, bursaries for expenses will not be available, although conference registration fees will be waived for participants presenting papers and for the chairs of sessions. Registration for all other participants will be $100 US. Conference schedule: • Initial call for papers: March 1, 2018 • Second call for papers: September 1, 2018 • Abstracts due: October 1, 2018 • Notification of participants: November 15, 2018 • Program published on website with conference instructions and open registration for participants not presenting papers: December 1, 2018 • Conference convenes: March 14, 2019 Principal conference organizer: Shane Bjornlie (Claremont McKenna College) Conference steering committee: Michelle Berenfeld (Pitzer College), Cavan Concannon (University of Southern California), Beth Digeser (UC Santa Barbara), Nicola Denzey Lewis (Claremont Graduate University), Michele Salzman (UC Riverside), Edward Watts (UC San Diego) and Ken Wolf (Pomona College) C. Manuscripts from the Margins: How to edit a forgery Call for papers 20–22 September 2018, Macquarie University The how and why of editing forged texts is a largely unarticulated domain. Whilst forgeries are ubiquitous in collections everywhere, they remain understudied and unappreciated. Efforts have concentrated on the identification of telltale signs of duplicity, rather than on the mechanics used to feign authenticity. As the intention of forgers differs from that of pre-modern scribes, the publication of textual remains cannot proceed as usual. These issues and others which illustrate some of the potential problems which attend the publication of forgeries will form the basis for discussion at this conference, through the presentation of a diverse range of textual forgeries purporting to be from antiquity through to the Renaissance. A two-day workshop on on 20th–21st September in which participants each present a forged text and discuss ways to best edit and study them will be followed by a day of lectures on synthetic themes for a wider audience on Saturday 22nd. The keynote speaker will be Professor Christopher Rollston (Department of Classical and Near Eastern languages and Civilizations, George Washington University, Washington D.C.). Offers of papers are welcome, and should be addressed to Malcolm Choat at malcolm@forgingantiquity.com by April 13th. Expressions of interest in participating should identify a forged manuscript which will be examined in the workshop. “Manuscript” should be understood broadly, to include any surface used for writing, including but not limited to papyrus, parchment, paper, metal, stone, wood, and pottery. The chronological range of the conference (in terms of when the forgeries have been asserted to date to) is antiquity through to the Renaissance, but papers on forgeries from after this period which address the themes of the conference will also be considered. For further information, see http:// www.forgingantiquity.com/conference2018. For inquiries, contact Malcolm Choat at malcolm@forgingantiquity.com. 4. Recent Publications The followings are the recent publications by the APECSS colleagues. If you have had a recent publication that you would like flagged here, please let me know. Dr. Edwina Murphy (Morling College, Sydney) Edwina Murphy, “Widows, Welfare and the Wayward: 1Timothy 5 in Cyprian’s Ad Quirinum,” Studia Patristica 94 (2017): 67–74. http://www.peeters-leuven.be/boekoverz_print.asp?nr=10629 Edwina Murphy, “Sell Your Possessions: Cyprian, Luke, and Wealth,” Colloquium 49 (2017): 15–32. https:// anzats.edu.au/journal/current-issue/ Edwina also won the 2017 SBL-De Gruyter Prize for Biblical Studies and Reception History for her manuscript “Cyprian’s Use of Paul.” Naoki Kamimura (Tokyo Gakugei University) Naoki Kamimura, ‘Augustine’s Sermons ad Populum and the Relationship Between Identity/ies and Spirituality in North African Christianity.’ In G. Partoens, A. Dupont, Sh. Boodts, and M. Lamberigts (eds.), Praedicatio Patrvm. Studis on Preaching in Late Antique North Africa, Ministerium Sermonis III, Instrumenta Patristica et Mediaevalia 75 (Turnhout: Brepols) 429–460. DOI 10.1484/M.IPM-EB.5.114062 http:// www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503570174-1 5. Research grant awarded Congratulations to Dr Matthew R. Crawford (Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry Australian Catholic University), in November 2017 he was awarded a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award from the Australian Research Council to fund his research for the years 2018–2020. The title of the project is “Religious Belief and Social Cohesion” and it will be a study of Cyril of Alexandria’s treatise Contra Iulianum, resulting in a translation of the work into English and a monograph examining the themes of philosophy, theology, and exegesis amongst Christians and pagans in the early fifth century.