EUH 5934:
Graduate Proseminar on Late Antiquity
University of Florida
Fall, 2010
Course Description and Aims:
This seminar will introduce graduate students tocentral sources, themes, methodologies and historiographical debates in the field of Late Antiquity. This year's proseminar will focus on three interrelated themes that have been prominent in recent scholarship on the period.
As a proseminar, this course will provide a survey of recent secondary literature in the field and will introduce you to a spectrum of methodologies and approaches. It will also introduce you to important tools and bibliographic resources for research. While becoming acquainted with major problems of late ancient and early medieval history, you will learn to recognize different ways of posing questions; read and discuss the scholarly literature critically; gain skills in independent research; and present and your own work in both oral and written form.
Requirements:
Two commentaries on the week’s readings, one longer commentary (4-6 pages, c.1500 words), and one shorter response (2-3 pages). The longer response will be sent to the whole class by Monday evening for everyone to read before seminar on Wednesday. (25%)
Participation will include co-leading 2 class discussions. In one of these sessions you will read your own 2-page response to the commentary of one of your colleagues. There will also be several short assignments on major authors and resources for late antiquity that you will prepare for class. (25%)
One 2-page translation of a Greek or Latin primary-source text relevant to the class (and preferably relevant to your own final paper) with a 2-3 page commentary (15%)
A12-15 page final paper on a primary source (3rd to 7th century) integrating the work or methodological approach of at least one of the scholars read this semester. (35%) There is some flexibility on the nature of this paper, but you must get my approval for the topic by week 9.
For those who are ready and would prefer to do a full-fledged research paper (c. 25-30 pages) rather than an extended primary source analysis, only one 4-6 page commentary will be required.
A short (10-15 minute) presentation on your research for the final paper.
Required Books (You will probably want to purchase most of these):
Anthony Grafton & Megan Williams, Christianity & the Transformation of the Book: Origen,
Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, Harvard, 2006.
Roger S. Bagnall, Early Christian Books in Egypt. Princeton University Press, 2009.
Megan Hale Williams, The Monk and the Book: Jerome & the Making of Christian Scholarship University of Chicago Press, 2006.
Edward J. Watts, City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria Berkeley: University of
California Press, paperback 2008.
Peter Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity. Towards a Christian Empire (1992)
Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire (1991; 1994) [e-book at UF]
Michele Salzman, The Making of a Christian Aristocracy: Social and Religious Change in the Western Roman Empire (Harvard, 2001; paperback 2004)
Fergus Millar, A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II, 408-450 Berkeley: University of California, 2006.
Denise Kimber Buell, Why this New Race? Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity (Columbia
University Press, 2005; paperback 2007)
Highly Recommended - relevant to seminar
(Purchase if you find used or inexpensive copies)
William E. Klingshirn and Linda Safran, eds., The Early Christian Book. Washington, D.C.:
Catholic University of America Press, 2007.
Raffaella Cribiore. The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch. Princeton University Press,
2007.
Jeremy M. Schott. Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2008.
Karla Pollmann and Mark Vessey, eds., Augustine and the Disciplines. From Cassaciacum to
Confessions. Oxford University Press, 2005.
Aaron Johnson. Ethnicity and Argument in Eusebius' Praeparatio Evangelica (Oxford, 2006)
Isabella Sandwell. Religious identity in late antiquity: Greeks, Jews, and Christians in Antioch.
Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Edward J. Watts. Riot in Alexandria. Tradition and Group Dynamics in Late Antique Pagan and
Christian Communities. Berkeley: University of California, 2010.
Thomas Sizgorich. Violence and Belief in Late Antiquity: Militant Devotion in Christianity and
Islam. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2008.
Seminar Schedule: Topics and Readings
PART I: BOOKS, SCHOLARS, AND EDUCATION
Week 1: 8/25 – Introduction to the Course
Personal Introductions
Introduction to the seminar
Introduction to a “proseminar”; Introduction to Late Antiquity
Beginning chapters of Grafton & Williams, Christianity & the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea – Preface through p.85
Week 2: 9/1 – Books, Scholarship, & the Library of Caesarea
Grafton & Williams, Finish Christianity & the Transformation of the Book
Watts, City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria, chapter 6 (pp.143-168)
Primary sources:
Gregory Thaumaturgus, “Address of Thanksgiving to Origen,” in St. Gregory Thaumaturgus: Life and Works. Translated by Michael Slusser. Fathers of the Church 98. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1998, pp. 91-126.
Origen, “Letter to Gregory,” in Joseph W. Trigg, Origen (New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 210-
213. [e-book]; Trigg’s intro chapters on Origen are also recommended.
The Greek texts of both these works and French translation are edited in: Grégoire le
Thaumaturge. Remerciement à Origéne, suivi de la lettre d'Origène à Grégoire. Greek text, introduction, translation and notes by Henri Crouzel. Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1969. (Sources Chrétiennes, 148)
Eusebius, Church History, Book 6 (especially chapter 3, 6-9, 16-19, 23-32) – passages on Origen
Week 3: 9/8 – Negotiating Hellenism: Pagan & Christian Perspectives on Learning (Libanius, Julian, Gregory, Basil, Chrysostom)
[First hour: Introduction to Historiography and Periodization – Discussion led by Dr. Sterk
Cameron, Averil. The “Long” Late Antiquity: A Late twentieth-century model. In Classics in progress: Essays on ancient Greece and Rome. Edited by T. P. Wiseman,. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 165-191.
Glen Bowersock, “Centrifugal Force in Late Antique Historiography: Moving to the Periphery,”
in Straw & Lim, The Past Before Us (2004), 19-23.
At least one of the following articles in Journal of Late Antiquity 2008.1.1 (1st issue):
Arnaldo Marcone, “A Long Late Antiquity?: Considerations on a Controversial Periodization,”
4–19; Edward James, “The Rise and Function of the Concept Late Antiquity,” 20–30; Clifford Ando, “Decline, Fall, and Transformation,” 31–60.]
Break
Watts, City and School, chapters 1-3 and 7 [ending w/Hypatia]; focus on chapter 3
“The Value of a Good Education: Libanius and Public Education” in Philip Rousseau, ed., A
Companion to Late Antiquity (Blackwell, 2009), 233-246.
Rafaella Cribiore, The School of Libanius, chapter 3: “The Network,” 83-110. [e-book]
Elm "Hellenism and Historiography: Gregory of Nazianzus and Julian in Dialogue," Journal of
Early Medieval Europe 33:3, Special issue honoring Elizabeth A. Clark, 2003, 493-515; reprint in The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies: Gender, Asceticism, and Historiography. Ed. Dale Martin, Patricia Cox Miller. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005, pp. 258-277.
Recommended: Susanna Elm, "Orthodoxy and the True Philosophical Life: Julian and Gregory
of Nazianzus." Studia Patristica 37 (2001): 69-85.
Recommended Primary Sources: Libanius, Julian, Gregory, Basil, Chrysostom
Week 4: Thursday, 9/16, 10:45-11:45 – Special seminar session with Roger Bagnall (lunch provided)
Roger S. Bagnall, Early Christian Books in Egypt
[Start Williams, The Monk and the Book for the following week]
Week 5: 9/22 – Scholarship and Learning in the West: Jerome & Augustine
Megan Hale Williams, The Monk and the Book: Jerome & the Making of Christian Scholarship
Neil McGlynn, “Disciplines of Discipleship in Late Antique Education: Augustine and Gregory
Nazianzen,” in Augustine and the Disciplines. From Cassaciacum to Confessions, ed. Karla Pollmann and Mark Vessey, 25-48.
Catherine M. Chin, “The Grammarian’s Spoils: De Doctrina Christiana and the Contexts of
Literary Education,” in Pollman & Vessey, Augustine and the Disciplines, 167-183.
Primary source: Augustine, “De doctrina Christiana”
Week 6: 9/29 – Literacy, Education, & Power in Late Antiquity (5th-6th century)
Finish Watts, City and School (chapters 5, 8, 9, & conclusion)
R. Kaster, Guardians of Language – ch. 2: “Professio Litterarum”
Something on Cassiodorus and/or Caesarius of Arles?
Book Burning:
Daniel Sarefield, "Book Burning in the Christian Roman Empire: Transforming a Pagan Rite of
Purification" in H.A. Drake, ed., Violence in Late Antiquity: Perceptions and Practices (Ashgate, 2006)
and/or Judith Herrin, “Book Burning as Purification” in Philip Rousseau, Emmanuel
Papoutsakis (ed.), Transformations of Late Antiquity: Essays for Peter Brown (Ashgate, 2009)
G.J. Reinink, "'Edessa Grew Dim and Nisibis Shone Forth' The School of Nisibis at the
Transition of the Sixth-Seventh Century"
[also Adam Becker on Nisibis]
PART II: THE MAKING OF A CHRISTIAN EMPIRE
Week 7: 10/6 – The Role of Paideia and Rhetoric
Peter Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity. Towards a Christian Empire (1992)
Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire (1994) [e-book]
Week 8: 10/13 - The Western Roman Empire
Michele Salzman, The Making of a Christian Aristocracy: Social and Religious Change in the Western Roman Empire [most of the book]
And perhaps:
McLynn on Ambrose and/or
Neil McLynn, “Augustine’s Roman Empire” in Mark Vessey, Karla Pollmann, Allan D.
Fitzgerald, History, Apocalypse, and the Secular Imagination: New Essays on Augustine's City of God. Bowling Green, OH: Philosophy Documentation Center, 1999.
John Matthews, "Four Funerals and a Wedding: This World and the Next in Fourth-Century
Rome" in Brown volume
Week 9: 10/20 – No Class!
No class – individual meetings with professor
Start Fergus Millar, A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II, 408-450
Week 10: 10/27 – The Eastern Roman Empire (Fifth & Sixth Centuries)
Fergus Millar, A Greek Roman Empire
Another article or two:
Bowersock, …
Averil Cameron, "Old and New Rome: Roman Studies in Sixth-Century Constantinople"
Week 11: 11/3 – Processes and Layers of Christianization (East & West)
Peter Brown, “Conversion and Christianization in Late Antiquity: The Case of Augustine,” in
Carole Straw et Richard Lim, eds, The Past Before Us: The Challenge of Historiographies
of Late Antiquity. Turnhout: Brepols, 2004. pp. 103-117 [webct]
Scott Fitzgerald Johnson on apocryphal literature
Christopher Haas, “Mountain Constantines”
Sterk, “ ‘Representing’ Mission from Below: Church Historians as Interpreters and Agents of
Christianization,” 1-34.
Later material:
Averil Cameron,"Images of Authority: Elites and Icons in Late Sixth-Century Byzantium."
Michael Maas, “‘Delivered from their Ancient Customs’” Christianity and the Question of
Cultural Change in Early Byzantine Ethnography,” in Mills & Grafton, eds., Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, 2003.
Ralph W. Mathisen "Barbarian Bishops and the Churches ‘in Barbaricis Gentibus’ During Late
Antiquity" Speculum 72.3 (July 1997): 665-697.
Week 12: 11/10 - Defining & Maintaining [Political & Sacred] Boundaries
From Empire to Kingdoms in the Late Antique West (John Vanderspoel)
Jewish-Christian [Naomi Koltun-Fromm] and/or something from A. Becker, ed., Ways that
Never Parted; Boyarin article or chapter
Syria – Tina Shepardson?
Sebastian P. Brock, “Christians in the Sasanid Empire: A Case of Divided Loyalties”
A. V. Williams, “Zoroastrians and Christians in Sasanian Iran,” Bulletin of the John Rylands
Library 78 (1996): 37-53 [? - maybe - check]
Something on pre-Islamic Arabia? Shahid, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/shahid.html
Two essays from Heresy and Identity in Late Antiquity, ed. by Eduard Iricinschi and Holger M.
Zellentin (Tübingen: Mohr, 2008):
Averil Cameron, “The Violence of Orthodoxy,” 102-114
Caroline Humfress, “Citizens and Heretics: Late Roman Lawyers on Christian Heresy,” 128-142.
Greatrex, “Roman Identity in the Sixth Century” [or under week 15]
PART III – IDENTITY FORMATION: RELIGION, RACE, ETHNICITY, & VIOLENCE
Week 13: 11/17 – Special Session with Denise Buell
Mon. 11/15 – Translation must be done!
Denise Kimber Buell, Why this New Race? Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity
Aaron Johnson - article
Week 14: 11/24 – Ethnicity and Identity in the West (session with Bonnie Effros)
[Peter Heather, “The Barbarian in Late Antiquity: Image & Reality”?]
Walter Pohl, "Telling the Difference: Signs of Ethnic Identity," in Strategies of Distinction: The
Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300-800, edited by Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz (Leiden: Brill, 1998), pp. 17-69.
Sebastian Brather, "Ethnic Identities as Constructions of Archaeology: the Case of the
Alamanni," in On Barbarian Identity: Critical Approaches to Ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages, edited by Andrew Gillett (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), pp. 149-176.
Frans Theuws, "Grave Goods, Ethnicity, and the Rhetoric of Burial Rites in Late Antique
Northern Gaul," in Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity: The Role of Power and Tradition, edited by Ton Derks and Nico Roymans (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009), pp. 283-319.
Mark Thomas, Michael P.H. Stumpf, and Heinrich Haerke, "Evidence for an Apartheid-Like
Social Structure in Early Anglo-Saxon England," _Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, series b, biological sciences 273 (2006): 2651-2657.
Andrew Merrills, "Bede," in his History and Geography in Late Antiquity (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 229-309.
Week 15: 12/1 – Race, Ethnicity, & Religious Identity (continued from Buell)
Jeremy M. Schott, “Porphyry on Christians and Others: "Barbarian Wisdom," Identity
Politics, and Anti-Christian Polemics on the Eve of the Great Persecution” JECS 13/3
(2005), 277-313.
Jeremy Schott, Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity (2008),
a couple chapters
Isabella Sandwell, Religious identity in late antiquity: Greeks, Jews, and Christians in Antioch (2007); (chapter 1?): “Understanding religious identity in fourth-century Antioch,”
Later period:
Geoffrey Greatrex, “Roman Identity in the Sixth Century”
Carole Straw, “Martyrdom and Christian Identity: Gregory the Great, Augustine, and
Tradition,” in The Limits of Ancient Christinaity. Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R.A. Markus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1999.
More coming…
Week 16: 12/8 – Community, Identity, and Violence in Late Antique Christianity & Islam
Possibilities:
Salzman article on pagan-Christian violence (drake volume)
Article(s) and/or a chapter of Thomas Sizgorich on identity & violence:
"‘Do Prophets Come with a Sword?’ Conquest, Empire, and Historical Narrative in the Early
Islamic World”
“Reasoned Violence & Shifty Frontiers” [Drake book]
Book: 2 chapters
Sidney H. Griffith, “Crosses, icons and the image of Christ in Edessa: the place of iconophobia
in the Christian-Muslim controversies of early Islamic times” [Brown volume]??
Topics for Oral Reports
Possible Modern Authors:
Momigliano
Marrou
Boyarin
Robert Markus
Drake
L. Cracco-Ruggini
Sebastian Brock, Sidney Griffith, Drijvers
Philip Rousseau
Elizabeth Clark
Haldon
Goffart
Van Dam
Journals, Philological Tools, Prosopographies
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