PLACE, SPACE, AND IDENTITY IN THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN WORLD
At the 2019 International meeting in Rome Italy, The Place, Space, and Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean World unit will have three sessions. The first is co-sponsored with the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions and engaged with the spatial history of Rome, Italy. Suggested topics on one of the most influential ancient Mediterranean cities might include, but are not limited to, the City of Rome as the witness of spatial claims for the politically, religiously, and culturally unique identities, including ritual spaces for “foreign” (imported or non-civic) cults in the city or in the home, from the antiquity to the contemporary world. We welcome studies of spatiality from texts as well as from artworks or architectures. The second will be a joint session with the Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls section. We welcome both the spatial conceptions of the Qumran community and the reflected spatial identities in the discourses (narrative or poetic spatiality) of the Dead Sea Scrolls or related second temple texts. The third session will be an open session that we invite proposals on any aspect of Place, Space, and Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean World, but especially proposals that use critical theories to understand the function of space and place in establishing the community identity. In all three sessions, places and cities in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament (i.e., Jerusalem and other cities) are basically welcome; papers make a comparison of those cities with Rome or places of the Qumran community by employing critical spatial theories including Heterotopia or Thirdspace are also welcome.