Source: Philevents.
Our conception of Roman justice has changeddramatically over the last few decades. In the English-speaking world, there has been a decisive shift away fromthe constitutionally based paradigm, toward an idea of the administration ofjustice as a heuristic process through which Roman political elites sought, onan ad hoc basis, to rationalise and justify Roman power in the provinces.
The conference ‘Between Heaven and Earth: Law,Ideology, and the Social Order in Late Antiquity’ will assess the ‘state ofplay’ regarding the administration of Roman law from the ConstitutioAntoniniana (212 CE) to the end of Antiquity. It is a period characterised by revolutionary changes. The extension ofcitizenship, the re-organization of provincial administration under Diocletian,and the changing ideological frame-work underpinning the emperor’s power eachtriggered significant developments. Theconference will consider problems including, but not limited to the following:
- The changing balance of practice: arbitration, municipal,provincial, and episcopal courts
- Justice and the God(s): the changing ideologicalfoundation of jurisdictio
- Deviance, Discipline, and Persecution: Fromsuperstitio to ‘heresy’
- Law and the social order: ius colonatus, patriapotestas, marriage legislation
- Codes, canons, collationes: changing practices ofcollection and communication
The format of the meeting will not be basedexclusively on lectures. Rather, we envisage a mix of formats for generatingdiscussion and exchanging expertise, including:
- Primary source masterclass Contributors willpre-circulate key primary sources on a givien topic, and to lead or contributeto seminar-style discussion and/or evaluation of their significance
- Historiographic masterclass Contributors willpre-circulate key secondary sources on a givien topic, and will lead aseminar-style assessment and/or re-evaluation of their significance. Thesources can either be ‘landmark’ publications or publications whose importancehas been overlooked or misunderstood.
- First person retrospective Contributors will offer apowerpoint talk or a seminar-style discussion of pre-circulated material, or acombination): In this case you would offer an informal overview of one or moreof your own previous publications (similar to the American Academy of Religion‘How My Mind Has Changed’ series or the Torino Petersen seminars). Many scholars—and not only younger scholars!—willbe intensely interested to hear ‘from the horse’s mouth’ what is really atstake in key publications. This isespecially true for publications that are not in one’s own nativelanguage—sometimes a clearer understanding of the landscape or context of ascholar’s work changes one’s understanding dramatically.
- Overview retrospective involving a retrospective on awider historiographical area
- Roundtable We welcome suggestions for plenaryroundtables on key topics, along with suggestions of individuals who mightcontribute a five-minute ex verbal introduction of a pre-circulated handout.
- Lecture (in order to make the most of the opportunityto exchange a deadline of 1 September is set for submission of lecturehandouts. This will allow them to be pre-circulatedto other conference participants at the same time as the ask to please plan topre-circulate your hand
Deadline for proposals: 15 March 2012
Proposals should include a title, indication of sourcesource material to be discussed, and a short paragraph describing the argument(in the case of lectures) or theme (in the case of other formats) Please feelfree to indicate an interest in more than one format for the material you wishto propose. Please do not hesitate toget in touch with questions or suggestions! These should be addressed to KateCooper (kate.cooper@manchester.ac.uk) in the first instance.
Note on Financial arrangements: we will not have firminformation about funding until April, so we would be grateful if colleaguescould let us know whether their participation depends on partial or fullsubsidy. Especially but not only in thecase of younger scholars, we will make every effort to support theparticipation of scholars who do not have access to travel funds from theirhome institution.
