Feeding on Dreams: Exiles and Exile in Late Antiquity

A Workshop at Yale University, 23-25 April 2018

Organized by Maria Doerfler (Yale University) and Geoffrey Nathan (University of New South Wales)

Being barred from one’s native lands, state and/or community was and continues to be a unique form of punishment. Individuals or groups might not only suffer from physical, economic and legal privation, but also social and cultural exclusion to the point of a kind of social death. In Late Antiquity, the degree of political and religious change made exile perhaps more likely for an increasingly diverse group, but may have also changed the nature of exile itself. Recent work both on conceptual exile and the exile of clerics raises the possibility of expanding the scope of scholarly conversations surrounding the practice in this period. This workshop’s purpose is to consider different experiences and conceptions of formal and informal banishment to arrive at a more holistic understanding of the social, cultural, and literary phenomenon of exile in Late Antiquity.

The organizers thus invite papers to explore the nature of exile and exiles in Late Antiquity (ca.300-650 CE). We welcome contributors to interpret these concepts broadly, and seek a wide variety of papers and disciplinary approaches.

Topics might include, but are not limited to:

Political and religious exile

Relegatio, deportatio, postliminium: exile in law

Self-exile

Conceptual exile (spiritual and metaphorical exile)

Treatments of exile in the religions of Late Antiquity

Diasporas and refugees

The archaeology of exile

After the workshop, participants will be invited to submit their revised papers for publication. Please send abstracts of up to 500 words to exileinlateantiquity@gmail.com. Alternatively, abstracts may be sent to either Maria Doerfler (maria.doerfler@yale.edu) or Geoff Nathan (g.nathan@unsw.edu.au) by 14 May 2017. For queries, please email either organizer.