Those. Othering, Alterity, Appropriation in Ancient Art - A digital Conference at the Institute of Classical Archaeology

Lilian Adlung-Schoenheit Discussion
Type: 
Call for Papers
Date: 
May 20, 2021 to May 21, 2021
Subject Fields: 
Ancient History, Archaeology, Classical Studies, Cultural History / Studies, World History / Studies

Concepts of others, othering, self-representation  or  opposing worlds are topics of well-known 
conferences and publications over the last decades. Due to the relevance and width of the topic, 
the  announced  event  would  like  to  continue  the  investigations  and  furthermore  consider  the 
Greeks and Romans as strangers in other cultures and the location of the ancient world in global 
history.
Dealing with others and the demarcation of the self is a determining phenomenon of human 
activity. Contact with others is an integral part of societies and allows each society to locate in 
a  wider  context.  The  disparaging  characterization  of  others  has  always  served  to  stabilize  a 
group's identity but not only concepts of enemies, also excessive idealizations of those others. 
Antiquity  is  no  exception.  The  confrontation  with  a  close  or  distant  counterpart  serves  the 
construction of social identities and usually exposes  more about the ascribing  group than about 
the portrayed. At the same time, the  frequent  presence  of the stereotyped  image  of the foreign
reciprocally constructs  further conceptions.  Consequently, the impact of depictions on further 
prejudices is worthy to be studied too.
For  this  conference,  the  term  others  (“those”)  is  broadly  defined;  including  neighboring  and 
distant, real and mythical foreign peoples, individual populations whose demarcation serves to 
identify  other  groups:  poor,  sick,  women,  men,  religious  adherents.  This  also  includes  the 
Greeks and Romans themselves, who found their way into depictions and descriptions as  others
by their contemporaneous counterparts and later epochs. 
The aim of the conference is to consider dealing with others, contexts of othering and alterity, 
to  question about  center and periphery and the reversal of this view, while investigating the 
self-positioning  of  those  presenting  others,  likewise  the  positioning  of  today's  scientific 
perspectives.
Theoretical approaches to the semiotic aspect of signs for others and others as signs are just 
as welcome as contributions aiming at cultural theoretical approaches to objectify and defocus 
ancient studies.
Contributions  of  no  longer  than  30  minutes  might  regard  the  following  themes  and  related 
aspects:


•  Mythologized foreign
•  Greco-Roman representations of others
•  Representations of minorities and subalterns in ancient societies
•  Representations of Greeks and Romans as others
•  Hybridities in border areas


The  aim  of  the  open  call  is  to  achieve  a  variety  of  theoretical,  material-based  and  both 
combining contributions.  Please submit paper proposals (300  –  500  words) until  15  March 2021
to Dr. Lilian Adlung-Schönheit (lilian.schoenheit@uni-hamburg.de).
Host of this conference is the Institute of Classical Archeology at the University of Hamburg.
Due to the current pandemic situation, the conference will take place via Zoom. Therefore, we 
would like to look forward to bringing together  colleagues  from different countries and interests.