The Courant Research Centre EDRIS (Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen) and the Graduiertenkolleg “Götterbilder-Gottesbilder-Weltbilder” (Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen) are pleased to announce the organisation of a Conference on Education and the Representations of the Beyond in Later Antiquity. The Conference will take place in Göttingen from the 14th to the 16th of October 2011. We welcome papers from the disciplines of Classics, Byzantine Studies, Religion Studies, and … Beyond that will help us to explore this theme.
Until the Middle Ages, Aeneas’ descent to Hades was one of the most popular readings. All the more, Later Antiquity is characterised by a larger interest in the afterlife or other liminal situations: mystery cults, various philosophical doctrines, magic, holy men, philosophical and/or political utopias, and other aspects of the supernatural open up different paths to the spheres of reality beyond man. The tapestry of the afterlife in Later Antiquity is therefore a multi-colour, multi-religious, and multicultural artefact. This plurality, whose common thread is Graeco-Roman education, encourages the dialogue and the exchange between the different religions, philosophical schools, and individuals of different educational background and opens the following questions (the list here is suggestive):
- What is the influence of classical education and of philosophy on the shaping of the Beyond?
- Where is the underworld situated for philosophers, pagans, and Christians respectively? - What does each group think about their ‘opponents’ ideas about the Beyond? - How does the development and canonisation of Christianity influences the representations of the hereafter? - What is the reception of Homeric and/or Virgilian Hades in Late Antique literature, Christian and/or pagan? - What is the medieval reception of Late Antique perception of the afterlife in the East and the West?
All the above will define the framework of the Conference. Confirmed speakers include Prof. Ken Dowden, Prof. Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, Prof. Radcliffe G. Edmonds III, Prof. Helmut Seng, Prof. Spyridon Rangos.
The deadline for abstract submissions is July 31st, 2011. Abstracts should be between 250-and 300 words.