Too often, the end of one particular historiographical genre is interpreted as the end of ancient historiography: Authors conceptualising their work in direct succession of Herodotus and Thucydides were still common in the sixth century, yet their strategy had all but vanished by the middle of the seventh century. The quality of historiographical output between 500 and 700 is unfortunately also measured against its Herodotean and Thucydidean “feel”, and is thus increasingly dismissed. Together with the contraction of Roman rule in the “Greek Dark Age”, i.e. roughly the seventh century, readers today might get the feeling that the ancient tradition of writing history had died out.
This view of historiography does, however, collide with the existence and vitality of regional variants of this practice. In many areas, we should not be talking about the death, but instead about the flourishing of writing history. Syriac, Armenian, Georgian or Coptic historiographical traditions were developing more or less independently between the fifth and seventh centuries – and they rarely get the attention they deserve in modern discourse. Nevertheless, much has been done in the last years to trace their common ground, their literary roots, and their respective characteristics. The conference “Historiography at the End of Antiquity” seeks to build on this work and expand its scope. We will try to shift our focus towards analysing the concepts behind regional traditions of history and to put their authors and audiences into their societal contexts. Our goal will be to create a common frame of reference for regionally and linguistically “separated” historiographies in late antiquity – from Greece to the Caucasus, and the Red Sea.
We are welcoming such diverse topics as:
- Concepts of “truth” and history in specific texts
- Text-critical analyses
- Concepts of history in non-historiographical texts
- Comparisons of genres (e.g., hagiography and historiography, chronicles, and historical epic poetry)
- Comparisons that span languages, cultures and/or traditions
- Analyses of the relationship between authors and their audiences
- Analyses of social groups and societal constellations in which history was written and read
- Network-analyses of protagonists and/or authors
- Practices of translating
- Intertextuality (connecting languages, cultures and/or traditions)
- Comparisons with other regions and other chronological contexts
If you would like to participate, you can refer to Jakob Riemenschneider (Jakob.riemenschneider@uibk.ac.at). Please share with us the intended title of your paper and a short abstract (200 to 300 words). We especially encourage scholars in the early stages of their prospective careers to send us their ideas. We support under-privileged scholars and scholars from non-european contexts. Please send us your proposals until the 15th of May 2022; a preliminary program will be made available in June.
You can present your paper in English, German, French, or Italian. Please keep in mind that we are not able to provide simultaneous translation and the language competence among the audience may vary. We plan to cover travel and accommodation.