The results of the Leverhulme-funded research project, ‘Visualising Late Antiquity’, undertaken by Dr Luke Lavan and Dr Ellen Swift from the Department of Classical & Archaeological Studies, will be presented at a conference, ‘The Visualisation of the Late Antique City’, at the Society of Antiquaries in London on Saturday 7 June 2014.
The late antique period has been the subject of four decades of intense research and debate. However, we still have no image of urban life at this time to present to the wider public. This contrasts with other periods of classical history, which are more widely known, thanks to effective synthesis and representations in art or film. As a result, late antiquity is effectively absent from popular historical consciousness. This makes it difficult for the work of scholars working in this field to be absorbed beyond academia, despite a great deal of research being undertaken on the period. Thus, it seems timely to bring academic work on late antiquity to wider attention, to compete with ‘Roman’ and ‘Medieval’ images of the European past. To achieve this, scholars must be able to evoke the material atmosphere of late antiquity convincingly, in both text and images, to create an imaginative space in which the public can conceive of the events and cultural development of the time. This conference will explore all aspects of the urban experience in Mediterranean cities AD 300 – 600, including architecture, behaviour, costume, and material culture.
To register for the conference, please contact PhD student Jo Stoner at jms59@kent.ac.uk by Saturday 25 May 2014. Fees are £20 / £10 students and OAPs.
For more information about the conference, including the programme of talks, please see the ‘Visualising Late Antiquity’ blog page here: www.visualisinglateantiquity.wordpress.com