Conferences and Events

Conferences

The Center supports a major conference every year, whenever possible.  In the past we have hosted “The Centrality of Animal Sacrifice” conference at Chicago (Spring 2008), “The Bridges between Life and Death” conference at Chicago (Spring 2009) and the “Deity in the Plural” conference at the Chicago Centre in Paris (September 2009).

In every instance we seek partners to share the cost: the first conference was organized as part of the Midwestern Consortium on Ancient Religions; the second as part of an evolving series of events with CSIC and the Complutense University in Madrid; and the third was part of the ongoing work of the Chicago-Paris Atelier on Ancient Religions.

Upcoming Events

Past Events

Conferences

• Lectures by CSAR Visiting Scholar Joachim Friedrich Quack (University of Heidelberg): “New Demotic Egyptian Magical Papyri from the Florence Collection” (January 9); “New Sources for Imhotep and his Veneration” (January 10)
• Conference: Religion, Cosmology and Empire in Sasanian Iran — February 24, 2012, 1:30–5:30, in Classics 21
• Lectures by CSAR Visiting Scholar Peter Struck (University of Pennsylvania): “Divine Signs and Human Nature: A Cognitive History of Divination in Antiquity” (February 27); “Lucky People and the Demonic Tillerman: Aristotle on Divination” (February 29).
• Conference on Imagined Beginnings: The Poetics and Politics of Cosmogony, Theogony and Anthropogony in the Ancient World — April 8–10, 2011, at the Franke Institute for the Humanities.
• Conference on Ancient Myth in Private Lives — October 29–30, 2010, in Classics 21.
• 2010 Meeting of the Chicago-Paris Working Group: “Les dieux au miroir du collectif / Gods in the Mirror of the Collective” — Paris, INHA, September, 2010.
• Holy War and Imperial Power — Chicago, May 2010.
• Deity in the Plural — Chicago Centre in Paris, September 2009
• The Bridges between Life and Death — Chicago, Spring 2009
• The Centrality of Animal Sacrifice — Chicago, Spring 2008

Workshops and Lectures

• Thomas Sizgorich (History, University of California at Irvine). ”Ka‘b an ‘Umar Go to Jerusalem: A Jewish Ghost in the Abode of Islam”. This workshop is co-sponsored by the Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Thursday May 6, 2010 – 3:30 pm – Classics 21

Visiting Scholars

Over the past three years we have developed a very successful pattern of inviting eminent scholars from overseas to spend a week to ten days on campus in the late winter or spring, during which time they make two presentations, usually a formal lecture and a workshop, meet informally with faculty and students and occasional participate in a small format symposium. Visitors in the past have included:

John Scheid of the Collège de France, 2008:
“Roman Sacrifice and the System of Being”
“Plutarch’s Roman Questions”.

Nicole Belayche of the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris (2009):
“A god is born … in Carian Stratoniceia (IStratonikeia 10)”
“Ritual Expressions of Distinction in the Divine World in the Imperial Period”.

Guy Stroumsa of Oxford University, visiting in April 2010:
“Teaching the Abrahamic Religions: a Subversive Enterprise”
Tuesday, April 13 at 3:30 in Classics 21 (Ancient Societies Workshop).
“Early Christian Docetism: Jewish and Greek Roots”
Thursday, April 15 at 4:00 in the Swift Hall Commons Room.