21 (noon)-23 June
(evening) 2016, Erfurt, Germany (Augustinerkloster).
The Lived Religion
approach to ancient religion, as developed at the Max Weber Center has
highlighted the importance of local spatial and social contexts, of materiality
and communication as much as of social imaginaries and knowledge. One of these
most important contexts is the urban, and this in two senses. First, the urban
can be seen as the product of a specific economic development in the aftermath
of the Neolithic revolution, embedded in cultural schemes of interpretation and
Lived Religion. Secondly the urban is also a specific constellation of
materiality and communication that finds its expression most of all in the
emergence of public spaces. This constellation is of key importance for the
specific reproduction of cultural schemes interpretation and Lived Religion. So
far, we have concentrated on domestic, secondary groupings’ and public space.
The collaboration with the new Center for Urban Network Evolutions at Aarhus
University and specialists in social geography allows to add a further field,
urban space, and to explore the mutual constitution of religious and urban
space in both directions. As a starting point, this raises the question of
religion in the city and in particular in ancient metropoleis of more than
100,000 inhabitants, characterized by a density of exchange and speed of
interaction, a plurality of religious practices and religious groups, by a
violence of critique and boundary drawing, by economic opportunities and
medical dangers unknown to rural spaces. The degree of reading competences and
the presence of texts in public spaces were certainly elevated there as well.
At the same time, the sheer size would have offered the possibility of
segmentation, of hiding or simply refraining from claiming public space.
Spatial distance might have lowered frequency of specific religious
interactions and hence degrees of institutionalisation, the diversity of public
spaces could have ensured a large number of shared practices and reduced the
salience of discrepant religious identities. Of course, these metropoleis were
intensively connected to the larger world, by economic, cultural and religious
exchange, by traders and immigrants, by exploitation of distant areas or
patronage. These metropoleis were present as imaginaries and penetrated as
places of attraction even into the most distant places and they grew
imaginaries of rural life and solitude at the same time. Once urbanity had
gained foothold there was nowhere which was not somehow effected by having
“become urban”, being somehow in touch with or affected by the “urban”. How did
these facts translate into religious agency, communication and identities
within the mega-cities? Certainly, many of the large urban formations were a
result of the formation of empires, but within the framework of “lived
religion”, the conference is not interested in empire but in scale as a factor
for history of religion. From a history of religion point of view, the very few
ancient mega-cities – Rome above all, but also Alexandria, Antioch and
Byzantium – also appear as places of important changes, of innovation and
conflict, of intensified literary production, of mutual influence, imitation,
and frequent, if not aggressive distinction, boundary drawing and processes of
marginalisation. The role of Hellenistic and imperial Alexandria for Judaism and
Late Antiquity’s Christianities is a case in point, the role of Rome for the
proliferation of diverse symbols (emperor, “Egyptian gods”, bull-sacrifice) and
theological and Christ-related texts another. What would ancient religion had
looked like without the specific contribution of these centres to the shaping
of religion and religious traditions? Are we able to specify such factors? To
narrate religious change in a way that pays sufficient attention to it and
might we be able to pin it down? Given the growing percentage of urban
population, already forming the majority, in today’s world, and the role of
mega-cities in contemporary life, has become a thriving field of research.
However, even here the role of religion in such environments is under-researched.
Thus, looking onto ancient metropoleis might also contribute to a pressing
field of research that so far has been dominated by a concentration on public
spaces and dissolution of tradition social forms of bondage and their
consequences to religion. This invites to attempt a comparative approach
focusing on the interaction of scale and lived religion. This demands to employ
comparison (with smaller cities or rural conditions) and larger diachronic
views (assessing rates and the importance of changes). It is also inviting
studies focusing on the interaction of different media, groups, and imaginaries
in a metropolitan environment. We are inviting young and senior scholars to
join the discussion and to contribute short papers on the mutual constitution or
the interaction of urban and religious developments past and present as
outlined above (15 minutes).
Please, send a
substantial abstract, including two or three bibliograpical references, until
11 March 2016 to emiliano.urcioli@uni-erfurt.de
We offer free accommodation
to accepted speakers and can offer travel subsidies on a limited scale.
Invited speakers:
Nicole Belayche,
Paris: "Mithraism in a megalopolis' context (Rome and Ostia)? An impact?
Which impact?"
Esther Eidinow,
Nottingham/Erfurt: Scaling Up: Networks, Narratives and Religion
Paul Lichterman, Los
Angeles: Style and inter-religious spaces
Lisa J. Lucero,
Urbana-Champaign: Low density Maya urbanism
Teresa Morgan, Oxford:
Rome, Alexandria and Antioch and key developments in early Christianity
Rubina Raja, Aarhus:
Networks in Metropoleis in the Eastern Mediterranean
Jörg Rüpke, Erfurt:
Metropoleis and religion: An uneasy companionship
Michael Stausberg,
Bergen/Erfurt: What is urban religion?
Anna Sun, Gabier/Ohio:
The Social Life of Prayer in Contemporary Shanghai
Miguel John Versluys,
Leiden: Unpacking the cosmopolitan node: Alexandria, Alexandrianism and
religious innovation
Markus Vinzent,
London/Erfurt: Jewish-Christian uprootings at Rome
Annette Weissenrieder,
Berkeley: Alexandria
Benno Werlen, Jena:
Schemes of Interpretation and the Constitution of Urbanity: Lived Religion and
Metropoleis in comparative perspective
Greg Woolf, London:
Scale and structure: Religious action in metropoleis of the Roman Empire
Rubina Raja, Center
for Urban Network Evolutions Aarhus University
Jörg Rüpke, Lived
Ancient Religion – Ordering Dynamics Max Weber Center Erfurt
Benno Werlen,
International Year of Global Understanding
Universität Jena
http://www.uni-erfurt.de/index.php?id=21031&L=1
https://www.uni-erfurt.de/index.php?id=33963&L=1
http://urbnet.au.dk/ http://www.global-understanding.info/
The conference is
financed by an ERC grant from the European Communion „Lived Ancient Religion“.
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