This conference is about girls in antiquity, from early Neolithic times to Late Antiquity, within the geographical limits from Europe to Egypt and the Ancient Orient.

For this the following range of topics will be of concern;

- Definition/Separation from female adulthood. »Girls« are female children and teenagers, who have not yet received the status of an adult woman. In modern society this status is legally reached/achieved by the age of 18, socially by economic independence (with a proper job) or by biological reproduction (own children). But which were the specific cultural rites de passages for the transition of females to adulthood in antiquity? Was it the wedding as a rule? This is suggested by literary sources both from Greece and Rome; but for prehistoric societies an institution like marriage can only to be postulated, and has so far not been proven.

- Birth-/Family planning. In contemporary society, most notably in Asian countries, the phenomenon of the »lost girls« is peculiar: female fetuses are aborted because of their sex, female newborns are killed or so badly cared for, that they do not survive. Was there anything comparable in ancient cultures? And if so, what kind of sources can account for such a practice? And what do we know at all about mortality of female children and the handling of the deceased?

- Development of gender identity. Were children always introduced early on to social roles according to their biological sex? Classical Greek sculpture for example in Athens represents children shortly after the age of crawling in a gender specific way. Are there any cultures which classified children as asexual creatures at an early age? And if so, until which age was this customary?

- Material cultures and social practices. Which clothing, hairdo, jewelry, or make-up were typical for girls in specific cultures? What kinds of objects did they handle and which social practices did they perform? In which social spaces were they supposed to stay? What can we deduce from this evidence with regard to the freedom of girls in different cultures or their own thoughts, wishes and beliefs?

 

- Discourses. Which discourses about girls can be conceived on the basis of literary and archaeological sources? In our society infant girls are much more sexualized than boys of the same age (e.g. by clothing, which emphasizes female attraction or on the contrary the scarf, explicitly veiling it). Does this already apply to antiquity and how can we prove it? A further modern phenomenon is the devaluation of girls' culture to that of boys, resulting from general gender hierarchy. (A girl playing football may be something special in the positive sense – but a boy dreaming of pink dresses and tiaras, is probably a catastrophe for his parents.) How was this issue perceived in ancient cultures?

- Research and media. At first sight girls seem to be the big invisibles in research, twice marginalized because of their sex and their age, their status of »not yet«. Is that true? And what about the presence and depiction of (pre)historic girls in rather popular scientific media, like schoolbooks and in movies?


Contributions
The conference addresses mainly researchers of Ancient History and Archaeology and explicitly young scholars. Contributions from other disciplines like social or educational sciences or Ethnology are very welcome, provided they complement the theoretic-methodological approaches and contribute to a better understanding of concepts in antiquity.

The papers are limited to 30 minutes with a discussion of 15 minutes.
Conference language is German and English.
Proposals with working title, an abstract of maximum 250 words as well as address and a short academic CV should be send until 31th October 2009 to the following contacts:


Dr. Susanne Moraw
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut
Podbielskiallee 69-71
14195 Berlin
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Anna Kieburg, M.A.
Institut für Kunstgeschichte und Archäologie der Universität Bonn
Am Hofgarten 21
53113 Bonn
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Organisation
The conference will be organized by »FemArc. Network of women in archaeology« (www.femarc.de) and is taking place 8th - 10th October 2010 at the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) in Berlin.

Subject to our funding expenses for travel and accommodation might be refundable.
Further information concerning the program will be submitted by the end of 2009.
Publication of the conference is planned in the series »Frauen – Forschung – Archäologie«

Source : Research News in Late Antiquity