[please crosspost as appropriate: originally sent to PSCO, IOUDAIOS-L,
ELENCHUS, Lt-Antiq, EccHst, Medieval-Religion, H-Judaic]
PHILADELPHIA SEMINAR ON CHRISTIAN ORIGINS
in its 37th year
an Interdisciplinary Humanities Seminar
under the auspices of the
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Department of Religious Studies
201 Logan Hall
TOPIC FOR 1999-2000: Ethnicity, Regionalism and Religious Developments
in Late Antique Egypt
Chairpersons:
Kirsti Copeland (Princeton University) [log in to unmask]
Ra'anan Abusch (Princeton University) [log in to unmask]
Coordinator:
Robert Kraft (University of Pennsylvania) [log in to unmask]
THE FOURTH MEETING OF 1998-99 will be held on Thursday, February 10 from 7-9
PM in room 137 in the Religion Department (1879 Hall) of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY.*
Persons wishing to dine with other participants prior to the meeting should
meet at 6 PM at 1879 Hall (at the corner of Prospect St. and Washington Rd. in
Princeton, NJ). Take-out food (vegetarian and non-vegetarian) will be
provided. Cost is $7 per person.
** NB - This meeting will be at Princeton University, not the University
of Pennsylvania
Please RSVP to either chairperson (addresses above), if possible, so that
we might have a rough idea of how much food to arrange.
PROGRAM: David Brakke (Indiana University)
"Jewish Flesh and Christian Spirit in Athanasius of Alexandria: The
Construction of Universal Orthodoxy"
Howard Clark Kee responding
Suggested Reading:
Christopher Haas, _Alexandria in Late Antiquity_, chapter 4
Daniel Boyarin, _A Radical Jew_, chapter 10
available electronically at
http://www-ucpress.berkeley.edu:3030/dynaweb/public/books/classics/boyarin
Athanasius, _Festal Letters_ 1 and 6 (NPNF, 2d ser., vol. 4, pp. 506-10,
519-23) available electronically at
http://ccel.wheaton.edu/fathers/NPNF2-04/v2/
Athanasius, _Discourses [or Orations] Against the Arians_ 1.1-10; 3.27-28
(NPNF, 2d ser., vol. 4, pp. 306-12, 408-10) see above for electronic site
1999-2000 TOPIC DESCRIPTION:
The Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins in its 37th year will
address the themes of "Ethnicity, Regionalism and Religious Developments
in Late Antique Egypt." The mass of surviving literary, material and
documentary evidence for and about Greco-Roman Egypt enables scholars to
produce local histories that focus on the social and economic context of
religious developments. It is this local scope which makes it possible
to pry apart the relationship between regional developments and the
massive continuity that characterizes Egyptian culture well into the
Roman period. Factors such as ethnicity, language, and religion
operating at a local level can be correlated to the larger historical
trajectories without being lost in generalizations about Egyptian or
Late Antique civilization.
Religious affiliation and ethnicity in Egypt constitute overlapping
frameworks of identity. Phenomena which uncomfortably carry the titles
"Hellenistic Judaism," "Christianity," "Gnosticism," "Paganism" and
"Magic" flourished alongside each other in Late Antique Egypt. The
instability that characterizes this religious world complicates the task
of delineating the historical developments of these competing
traditions. By focusing on the interplay between religious development
and contextualized social conditions, these sessions will explore the
synchronic and diachronic continuities and discontinuities that exist
along contested fault-lines in Late Antique Egypt.
1999-2000 SCHEDULE:
Thursday, March 9: Christopher Haas (Villanova University) with
Guy Stroumsa (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) responding
"Ethno-religious Identity and the Struggle for Cultural Hegemony
in Late Antique Alexandria"
Thursday, April 12: Sarah Iles Johnston (Ohio State University)
"Creating Ritual: Innovation and Tradition in the Magical Papyri"
** Session to be held at Princeton University
For further information, please visit the PSCO website:
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/psco/
*Please note that this session is to be held at Princeton University and
not at the University of Pennsylvania.*
//end//
--
Robert A. Kraft, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania
227 Logan Hall (Philadelphia PA 19104-6304); tel. 215 898-5827
[log in to unmask]
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html
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