CAS Workshop 2009

The thirteenth century CE in the eastern Mediterranean and adjacent regions witnessed dramatic political encounters, hostile conflicts, and movements of peoples. At the same time, new cultural contacts between groups of differing ethnicities and confessions seem to have inspired a rich development in architecture, the visual arts, and material culture. Set against the “official” written history, a detailed examination of the cultural production may offer a more nuanced view of the period. The purpose of the workshop is to generate discussion on a subject of common interest, bringing together area scholars for an informal conversation. The CAS annual workshop asks invited participants to give a 15-minute introduction to an aspect of their research related to the central topic as a stimulus to discussion.

For more information, including a full schedule, visit www.sas.upenn.edu/ancient/workshop09.html

Mon March 30 10:00 am to 5:30 pm

This conference deals with the various peoples and civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and the land of the Bible, with a particular emphasis on drawing connections between those worlds. Fifteen colleagues and former students of Dr. Barry Eichler will give presentations on new insights gained from recent research on the languages and cultures of the ancient Middle East, covering topics such as law and society, political and social history, as well as mythology, religion and linguistics. Among the papers to be presented are: “Commercial Practices at Ugarit and Biblical Law” (McGeough), “Cyrus, Elam, and the Bible” (Waters), “Divine Causality and Babylonian Divination” (Rochberg), “The Exodus Narrative as an Expression of the Cosmic Combat Motif” (Aster), “Marked for Servitude: Mesopotamia and the Bible” (Fox), “A New Look at the Theological Background of the Mesopotamian Flood Stories” (Klein), and “What is the Book of Job About” (Berlin).

Dr. Eichler is Curator Emeritus of Penn Museum’s Babylonian Section, and he was also an associate professor of Assyriology in Penn’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations for almost forty year before his retirement in 2007. The presenters include: S. Aster, Yeshiva University J. Barrbee, Philadelphia A. Berlin, University of Maryland N. Fox, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion K. McGeough, University of Lethbridge P. Delnero, Johns Hopkins University S. Holtz, Yeshiva University J. Klein, Bar-Ilan University M. Maidman, York University R. Rochberg, University of California, Berkeley M.T. Roth, University of Chicago M. Rutz, University of Pennsylvania R. Steiner, Yeshiva University C. E. Suter, Basel M. Waters, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire

CAS Graduate Conference - 20-21 March 2009, Penn Museum

When interactions between ancient cultures are characterized as confrontations with inevitable "winners" and "losers", one group emerges to dominate political, cultural, and historical discourse. However, such a view tends to overlook or oversimplify the extent to which cultures and ethnic groups influence one another. This interaction often mutually influenced each culture in areas as broad as economy, material culture, literature and the arts, and government. This conference aims to discuss the appearance and results of cultural contact broadly, as found throughout the ancient world. While the term 'ancient' has different connotations in every discipline and can imply different chronological parameters, nevertheless, its fundamental connotations are relatively stable: e.g., a period of considerable remoteness of time and radical changes in cultural paradigms in such basic areas of human activity and experience as technology, economics, and epistemology. These common principles that underlie conceptions of 'ancient' are the focus of the Center for Ancient Studies. Open to the public; free admission with registration at event.

Keynote: “The First Investigations of the Highland/Lowland Frontier of the Classic Maya Civilization: Unexpected Discoveries and New Insights into Ancient Identity, Ethnicity, and Political Economy” Dr. Arthur Demarest Ingram Professor, Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University Director, Vanderbilt Institute of Mesoamerican Archaeology .

For full schedule of events, please visit www.sas.upenn.edu/ancient/catalysts.html

The Center for Ancient Studies at the University of Pennsylvania will sponsor a one-day symposium on “Celebrations of Continuity and Change: Triumph and Spectacle in the Ancient World” to take place all day Friday 6 March 2009, beginning at 9:30 a.m. All lectures are open to the public and will take place in the Rainey Auditorium at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. The keynote speaker will be Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and fellow of Newnham College. She is Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement and author of the book The Roman Triumph, published in 2007. Other speakers include Kostas Zachos (Greek Archaeological Service), Mehmet Ali Ataç (Bryn Mawr College), David O’Connor (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU), Lillian Armstrong (Wellesley College), Larry Silver (Penn), and Julian Raby (Smithsonian Institution). Lecture topics will range from ancient Egypt through the Ottoman Empire. The symposium is timed to accompany the exhibit “Grand Scale: Monumental Prints in the Age of Dürer and Titian,” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from 31 January through 26 April 2009. Curated by Penn History of Art Professor Larry Silver, the exhibit features large-scale and multiple-plate prints, several of which recreate Roman triumphs, while others expand upon the theme of the triumph to celebrate more exotic subjects.

For more information, please go to http://www.sas.upenn.edu/ancient/triumphs.html.

5:30 PM Reception in the Mosaic Gallery (Free and open to the public) - 6:00 PM Lecture (Free and open to the public) - 7:30 PM Gala dinner with the speaker at the White Dog Café - *To make a reservation for dinner please e-mail Elizabeth Shank at elizabethshank@hotmail.com by November 14, 2008

The Historians of Islamic Art Association (HIAA) will be holding an international symposium at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. This symposium is intended as the inauguration of a biennial cycle of meetings within the field in order to reflect its growth, to support its expanding methodological, regional, and temporal scope, and to give HIAA greater visibility internationally as the leading organization for historians of Islamic art, architecture and archaeology. STRUCTURE OF SYMPOSIUM The first symposium will take place over a three-day period and will have each of the three days focused on a different zone of interest. The first day, “Out of Late Antiquity,” takes up the field’s formative emphasis on early Islamic art, a field remade in recent years through continued archaeological investigations and critically informed readings of the historical sources. The second day, " ‘Unity and Variety’ Once More: Time, Place, Material,” examines the field’s definitive shift since the late 1970s to regional, dynastic, and media based inquiries. The third day, “Confronting Modernity,” addresses the extension of the field into the modern and contemporary periods, and emerging debates about their study. The program for each day will consist of three separate elements: a keynote address, three sessions of papers, and a specialized workshop. The three keynote addresses will be supported by three scholarly sessions, each comprised of four papers. Session organizers have been be asked to develop a theme appropriate for the day for their session, and invite speaker or call for papers. They were free to invite a co-organizer. They have also been encouraged to recruit one of their four papers from abroad, preferably from scholars residing in countries of the Islamic world. The workshops, each led by an expert, are meant to familiarize colleagues with new directions or findings in specific sub-fields that may not familiar or easily accessible. Day One (16 Oct): Theme: “Out of Late Antiquity” Day Two (17 Oct): Theme: “'Unity and Variety’ Once More: Time, Place, Material” Day Three (18 Oct): Theme: “Confronting Modernity” Please visit http://www.arthistory.upenn.edu/HIAA/index.html for more details.

Dr. Baker received her doctorate in Assyriology from Oxford University and is a member of the research project Wirtschaftsgeschichte Babyloniens im 1. Jahrtausend vor Christus based at the Institut für Orientalistik, Universität Wien.