LATE ANTIQUITY

in the Dept. of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

 

The Department of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign participates in an interdisciplinary field in the study of Late Antiquity, encompassing the Late Roman, Early Medieval, and Early Byzantine periods (third through seventh centuries AD).  Late Antiquity now is recognized as one of the most significant periods of the human past. In the west, Late Antiquity saw the gradual withering of classical society, government, and religion, and the for­mation of a strictly western European, Christian society that eventu­ally would culminate in the modern‑day western European nations. And in the eastern Mediterranean, the Roman Empire continued and evolved as the "Byzantine Empire," and the seventh century saw the birth of another major world religion, Islam, along with the Islamic caliphate. The field in Late Antiquity has interdisciplinary aspects ranging from geographical (eastern and western Europe, North Africa, the Near East), to methodological (including palaeography, epigraphy, numismatics, prosopography, and computer applications), to topical (too numerous to mention), and to disciplinary (cited below). It is the only program of its kind in the state and surrounding area. Its associated faculty in Ancient and Medieval Studies in the Department of History and in other university Departments have internation­al reputations in their fields and provide the opportunity to craft a program of study in Late Antiquity of unparalleled richness and depth.

 

Professional Journals.  Field faculty include the editor of the Journal of Late Antiquity and the North American editor for Early Medieval Europe.

 

Electronic Resources.  The field is the home of the Biographical Database for Late Antiquity; the Geography of Roman Gaul Web Site; the Society for Late Antiquity website; the Late Antiquity Newsletter; and the Internet Discussion Lists LT‑ANTIQ, NUMISM‑L, and PROSOP-L..

Library Resources. Containing more than eight million volumes, the University of Illinois Library is the third largest academic library in the nation, and the Classics Library is the starting point for accessing a multitude of late antique resources. We also are affiliated with the Newberry Library of Chicago, which boasts particularly fine collections in Renaissance and early modern Europe.

Sponsored Events. The late antique faculty at Illinois organize regular late antique symposia and conferences, including a Symposium on the 1500th Anniversary of the Battle of Vouillé in the Spring of 2007; the bienniel "Late Antiquity at Illinois" conference, which has met in 2004 and 2006, and highlights current research by faculty from institutions in Illinois and neighboring states. In 2005, we sponsored the sixth biennial Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity conference, on the topic of "Romans and Barbarians and the Transformation of the Roman World," which hosted over 100 participants from 17 countries. In conjunction with the Shifting Frontiers conference, field faculty collaborated on an exhibition at the Spurlock Museum, "The Origins of Merovingian Archaeology", which spotlighted the Spurlock's extraordinary collection of Merovingian artifacts.

Graduate Studies: Graduate study in Late Antiquity at Illinois focuses on preparing graduate students for life in the world of the scholarly and academic professional. Field faculty sponsor approximately 15 sessions at the annual International Medieval Studies Congress at Western Michigan University. Prior to the congress, we and our colleagues in Medieval Studies sponsor a pre-Kalamazoo symposium where our graduate student presenters (in 2006 there were 11) give previews of their papers. Graduate students also are encouraged to present their research at other internal and external venues. Faculty and graduate students also participate in a weekly Medieval Latin Sight Reading group.

Visitors and Exchange Students: We welcome students from abroad who are able to come, sit in on classes, and work with late antique faculty for periods extending anywhere from a few weeks to a full term or more. Graduate students sponsored by the World Universities Network have visited from several British universities, and Spain also has been represented. We usually cannot provide funding for overseas visitors, but UIUC can offer a variety of guest privileges, ranging from library privileges to the opportunity to rent university housing.

THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Illinois ranks among the top ten departments of history in public institutions. Our faculty in early European history has grown over the past few years, as we have added two new members with ancient and medieval specialties. Our treatment of Late Antiquity benefits from strong fields in ancient, medieval, and early modern Europe. Themes in which our department is particularly strong include women and gender, the new cultural history, social history, religious history, the history of work, and the history of war and society. Individuals pursuing the study of Late Antiquity will benefit not only from courses with primary faculty, but also from a graduate student readings group, a faculty/graduate student colloquium, and presentations by visiting scholars. Plans are also underway to bring together other Illinois faculty concerned with early Europe from the English and foreign language departments, art history, and other units. The campus already benefits from two interdisciplinary meeting grounds, the Medieval Colloquium and the Renaissance Seminar. To learn more about the Department, see our web page (http://www.history.uiuc.edu/ To apply for admission and financial aid, please write: Graduate Secretary, Department of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 309 Gregory Hall, 810 South Wright Street, Urbana, IL 61801. You may also contact the graduate secretary by phone at (217) 244-2591. The deadline for admission applications is December15.

PRIMARY HISTORY DEPARTMENT REPRESENTITIVE AND FIELD CO-ORGANIZER

Ralph W. Mathisen (Ph.D., Wisconsin, 1979), Late Antiquity; social and cultural history of the Roman and Byzantine Empires; impact of the barbarian settlements; numismatics, prosopography, codicology, and computer applications to historical studies. He currently is working on books on “Barbarian Intellectuals in Late Antiquity”; the late Roman comedy “The Querolus”; and (in collaboration with Danuta Shanzer) the life and letters of Desiderius of Cahors. He has authored or edited ten books, most recently People, Personal Expression, and Social Relations in Late Antiquity, 2 vols. (Univ. of Michigan, 2003); Society and Culture in Late Antique Gaul. Revisiting the Sources (Ashgate, 2001) (with D.R. Shanzer); Law, Society, and Authority in Late Antiquity (Oxford Univ. Press, 2001); and Ruricius of Limoges and Friends: A Collection of Letters from Visigothic Aquitania (Liverpool Univ. Press, 1999), and has published over 70 scholarly articles, including, recently, "Peregrini, Barbari, and Cives Romani: Concepts of Citizenship and The Legal Identity of Barbarians in the Later Roman Empire," American Historical Review 111 (2006), pp.1011-1040. He is Director of the Biographical Database for Late Antiquity Project, and a Fellow of the American Numismatic Society.

AFFILIATED HISTORY DEPARTMENT MEDIEVAL FACULTY

M. Megan Mclaughlin (Ph.D., Stanford, 1985), religion and society to 1200; women and gender; sexuality, gender, and politics in 11th-century Europe; rituals for the dead in 12th-century France.

Carol Symes (Ph.D., Harvard, 1999), Medieval Europe, especially France and England; cultural history; history of information media and communication technologies; history of theatre.

INTERDISCIPLINARY FIELD CO-ORGANIZER

Danuta R. Shanzer  (Dept. of Classics), Late Antique (2nd-6th C.) and Early Medieval Latin Literature (7th-12th C.), Vulgar Latin, Literary History, Palaeography and Textual Criticism. Author of A Philosophical and Literary Commentary on Martianus Capella's De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii Liber 1, and (with Ian Wood) Avitus of Vienne: Letters and Selected Pro se (Liverpool 2002). Editor (with Ralph Mathisen) of Society and Culture in Late Antique Gaul: Revisiting the Sources (Ashgate, 2002) and numerous articles on late antique and medieval Latin literature. Currently editing Avitus of Vienne's letters and translating Desiderius of Cahors. Work in progress on Gregory of Tours and Merovingian Hagiography; Later Roman and Merovingian Gaul; Marriage, Family, and the Church; the early medieval ordeal by fire. North American Editor of Early Medieval Europe.

OTHER UIUC FACULTY WORKING IN LATE ANTIQUITY

Thomas M. Conley (Dept. of Speech Communications) works in Byzantine rhetoric; publications include "Greek Rhetorics after the Fall of Constantinople: An Introduction," Rhetorica 18(2000), 265-294. 

Stephan Heilen (Dept. of Classics), works on natural Sciences in Late Antiquity, especially astronomy, astrology, and geography; publications include, books: Concordantia in Laurentii Bonincontri Miniatensis carmina de rebus naturalibus et diuinis (Hildesheim, 2000), Laurentius Bonincontrius Miniatensis, De rebus naturalibus et diuinis. (Stuttgart/Leipzig, 1999); and Hadriani genitura. Die astrologischen Fragmente des Antigonos von Nikaia. Edition, Übersetzung und Kommentar (forthcoming); and articles: "Astrological Remarks on the New Horoscopes from Kellis," ZPE 146 (2004), 131-136; Italica o Roma? Nota alla riaccesa disputa sul luogo di nascita dell’imperatore Adriano, in: Athenaeum 94 (2006); and "Teaching 'Astrology in Greece and Rome'," Classical Journal 98.2 (2002/03), 201-210 (about teaching at UIUC).

Howard Jacobson (Dept. of Classics, emeritus) specializes in Hellenistic Judaism and is the author of The Exagoge of Ezekiel (Cambridge, 1983), the winner of the American Philological Association's Goodwin Award of Merit, of A Commentary on Pseudo-Philo's Liber antiquitatum biblicarum, with Latin Text and English Translation (Leiden, 1996); and of numerous articles.

Richard Layton (Dept. of Religious Studies), Research interests in Christianity in Late Antiquity, History of Biblical Interpretation,  and the formation of a Christian intellectual tradition, publications include Didymus the Blind and His Circle in Late-Antique Alexandria: Virtue and Narrative in Biblical Scholarship (Urbana, 2004) and "Recovering Origen's Pauline Exegesis: Exegesis and Eschatology in the Commentary on Ephesians"
Journal of Early Christian Studies 8 (2000),  373-411.

Gary G. Porton (Dept of Religious  Studies) is the Drobny Professor of Talmudic Studies and Judaism. His major research interests include "the other" in Judaism, rabbinic ideas of the gentile, conversion in Judaism in late antiquity, Jewish biblical exegesis, literary studies of rabbinic literature, the feminine in rabbinic literature, American liberal Judaism. He teaches courses in the history of Judaism, religious responses to the Holocaust, American Judaism, Judaism in late antiquity, Jewish customs and ceremonies, and Jewish sacred literature.

Bruce Rosenstock (Dept. of Religious Studies), Publications include: New Men: Converso Religiosity in the Fifteenth Century; Heresies and Orthodoxies: Regulating Identities in Late Antiquity; and Laughter, Revelation, Exile: Studies in the Cultural Poetics of the Bible (in preparation).

Frederick Schwink (Dept. of Germanic Languages and Literatures), works on the Gothic translation of the Bible, and Runes and proto-Germanic languages. His Publications include The Third Gender: Studies in the Origin and History of Germanic Grammatical Gender. Heidelberg, 2004); and "A Gothic Expression for 'Homosexual'?", Indogermanische Forschungen 98(1993), 231-240. 

Charles D. Wright ((Department of English), Medieval literature, Old English, Old Irish, Hiberno-Latin. Author of The Irish Tradition in Old English Literature (Cambridge, 1993) and various essays on Old English literature, especially the homilies of the Vercelli Book, and on Hiberno-Latin biblical exegesis. His current projects include an edition of the Latin and Old English versions of the Apocalypse of Thomas. Among his recent courses at UIUC have been Old English, Beowulf, Celtic Myth and Legend, and Bibliography and Methods of Medieval Studies. He is co-editor of the quarterly journal JEGP: Medieval English, Germanic, and Celtic Studies.

OTHER LOCAL ILLINOIS FACULTY WORKING IN LATE ANTIQUITY (50 mile radius)

Jason Moralee (Dept. of History, Illinois Wesleyan Univ., Bloomington, IL), is interested in epigraphy and the Roman Near East, and did a dissertation entitled "For Salvation’s Sake: Provincial Loyalty and Personal Religion in the Dedications for Salvation from the Roman and Late Antique Near East, 100 BC — AD 800."

Bailey K. Young (Dept. of History, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL), a world authority on Merovingian archaeology, served as specialist guest curator for the "The Origins of Merovingian Archaeology" at UIUC's Spurlock Museum and collaborates closely with UIUC late antique faculty.

 

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