REFUGE AND REFUGEES IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
November 11-12, 2016. Columbia University in the City of New York
Abstracts are due by May 2, 2016. Please email cuconference2016@gmail.com
We invite papers from graduate students working across disciplines related to the ancient world for a two-day conference which will explore the issues of refuge and refugees. From representations of refugees and the notions of “refuge” to their physical traces in the archaeological record, we hope to discuss how ancient societies experienced and conceptualized the flight and plight of displaced peoples.
In light of the recent upsurge in work on ancient Mediterranean migration and exile, as well as current events, new questions arise: What heuristic value does the term “refugee” have for our understanding of the ancient equivalent? How do we define refuge and refugees? Where do we look for the voices of refugees among the ancient evidence? What and where are the sites of “refuge” attested across the ancient Mediterranean world?
We welcome papers in any disciplinary field––and interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged––pertaining to the ancient Mediterranean world and surrounding regions, including Egypt, the Near East and the expanses of the Roman Empire, and falling within the period spanning from the Bronze Age to Late Antiquity.