Information signalée par Renaud Alexandre

Mediterranean Identities: Formation and Transformation

The Universities of Leicester and Nottingham would like to announce a three-day cross-disciplinary conference on 'Mediterranean Identities: Formation and Transformation'. This conference will take place at the University of Leicester from Friday 26th March until Sunday 28th March 2010, and is the first of a series of conferences under the project heading MICHA ('Mediterranean Identities: Culture, History and Archaeology') addressing the theme of identities in the Mediterranean world from a range of different perspectives. A full programme and registration form is available at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/classics/research/conferences/mediterranean.aspx. Please note that the deadline for registering is Wednesday 10th March.

Please address any queries to the organizers, Constantina Katsari ( Cette adresse email est protégée contre les robots des spammeurs, vous devez activer Javascript pour la voir. ) or Mark Bradley ( Cette adresse email est protégée contre les robots des spammeurs, vous devez activer Javascript pour la voir. ).

Official conference email address: Cette adresse email est protégée contre les robots des spammeurs, vous devez activer Javascript pour la voir.
Official website: www.mediterraneanidentities.com


CONFERENCE STATEMENT

Recent studies of the Mediterranean have been dominated by the construction, reinforcement, representation and renegotiation of identities. As a departure point, this conference will address theoretical approaches to the formation and transformation of these identities throughout time and space. In particular, the use of comparative methods in the history of communal identities in the Mediterranean will highlight not only the course of their development but also will explain the extraordinary longevity of influential identities such as Greek and Jewish.

Questions to be addressed will include, but are certainly not limited to: 1) How are identities formed? 2) How are they represented? 3) How do communities and societies organize and express themselves spatially? How does their identity relate to that of surrounding spaces and surrounding communities? How permeable are the boundaries? 4) How is power distilled from heterogeneity? 5) To what extent is the formation of identities governed by economic considerations? 6) How do wars, revolutions and migrations affect collective identities? 7) How do identities develop and evolve over time? 8) To what extent can we identify a 'Mediterranean identity'? 9) Can we recognize patterns of identity that cut across different Mediterranean communities and cultures? 10) How far did the elite centres of Greece and Rome inform the ways peripheral communities and later societies deployed and understood their populations, geography and environment? 11) How should we approach the archaeology of identity?

This conference is part of a larger project that aims to assess the value of 'identity' as a tool of intellectual enquiry in the disciplines of archaeology, classics, history, literature and art history. It sets out to explore identities in the full range of spheres - social, political, cultural, religious and economic - and their value as a tool of historiographical enquiry into ancient and modern societies in the Mediterranean world. Furthermore, it seeks to depart from the 'traditional' social constructionist interpretations, which focus only on the impact of culture. The challenge that remains is to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between society, religion, culture, economics and ethnicity in the formation of identities in the Mediterranean.

Registration fees (including lunch and refreshments):

Staff: £90 (whole conference); £65 (two days); £35 (one day)
Students: £50 (whole conference); £35 (two days); £20 (one day)