[MGSA-L] Princeton Hellenic Studies Workshop: November 18, 2011

[Dimitri H. Gondicas]

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Hellenic Studies

Workshop


Processes of Christianization:

Pagans, Christians, and Jews in an Island Landscape

Georgios Deligiannakis
gdeligia at princeton.edu<mailto:gdeligia at princeton.edu>
Open University of Cyprus
Visiting Fellow, Hellenic Studies


Discussing key epigraphic monuments from the Aegean islands this talk will broach the issue of co-existing religious groups in various geographic locations around the eastern Mediterranean. Focusing on specific sites, the presentation will explore issues of Christianization within the religious landscape of this area.  Texts to be discussed include: (1) two late-antique epigrams from Rhodes that refer to a certain Anastasios, probably a Christian, who dedicated to the city of Rhodes two public documents with traditional mythological themes, in both text and decoration; and (2) a group of late inscriptions from Ikaria with texts copying, paraphrasing, or combining passages from the Old Testament; quotations from sermons; a fabricated oracle of Apollo; and a discriminatory phrase against the Jews.  In the first case, the paper will attempt to reconstruct the history of these monuments in the urban landscape of Rhodes and to place them in the context of Christian mythological classicism and the Christianisation process unfolding in various late-antique cities. In the second case, the talk will offer some thoughts on the historical context of these texts and how they might have functioned both individually and as a group.



Georgios Deligiannakis is a Lecturer in Late Roman History at the Open University of Cyprus. He received his undergraduate degree in Classical Archaeology from the University of Athens. He pursued graduate studies at the University of Oxford where he was awarded his M.Phil. in Greek and Roman History and a D.Phil. with a dissertation on "The History and Archaeology of the Aegean Islands in Late Antiquity, A.D. 300-700: the Case of the Dodecanese" that examined the available evidence concerning the south-eastern Aegean in late antiquity and tried to see this region as part of a wider system of social and economic relations, political history, and material culture across the Later Roman Empire. He has published various articles on late antique archaeology, epigraphy, religion, and economic history and he was co-editor of The Aegean and its Cultures (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2009), based on the first Oxford-Athens graduate student workshop organized by the Oxford University Greek Society and the Taylor Institution. In 2009 he was visiting research fellow at the Center for Epigraphical and Paleographical Studies, Ohio State University. He is currently editing a collection of Readings in Late Antiquity (Open University of Cyprus-Gutenberg, 2012); he is also working on late antique inscriptions from Cyprus and the systematic archaeological study of an Early Christian Basilica near Limassol, Cyprus. His current research project is to examine primary and secondary sources from the medieval and early modern period about the social and economic history of the eastern Aegean littorals.
Friday, November 18, 2011
1:30 p.m.
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103


The HELLENIC STUDIES WORKSHOP provides an opportunity for post-doctoral fellows, visiting fellows, and graduate students to present their work-in-progress or recently published research. The aim is to encourage exchange of ideas across disciplines among Classical scholars, Byzantinists, and Modern Greek Studies specialists.



DATES:  Most Fridays, 1:30-3:30 p.m., during the term.  Dates, speakers and titles will be announced in advance via e-mail.



PLACE:  Room 103, Scheide Caldwell House, Princeton University



For further information about current events in Hellenic Studies, please refer to the calendar posted on our website:  http://www.princeton.edu/~hellenic/



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/public/mgsa-l/attachments/20111115/b8b9f19a/attachment.html