Religion in Pieces

An Interdisciplinary Conference sponsored by the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions and the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World

Brown University
April 27th-29th, 2012

Program Schedule

Friday, April 27th 2012

7:00pm: Introduction and Welcome

Jeffrey Brodd, President, Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions
Susan Alcock, Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World

7:15pm: Keynote Address

Christopher Faraone, University of Chicago
“Connecting the Dots: Making Sense of the Fragmentary Evidence for Ancient Greek Magic”

Saturday, April 28th 2012

9:00-10:15am: Ancient Israel, Greece and the Near East

Janling Fu, Harvard University
“Fragments Left Over: Ritual Practice and Intimate Privilege in Ancient Israel”

Sarah Morris, University of California at Los Angeles
“Infanticide in Pieces: Fragments of Discourse and Practice on Infant Mortality in Greece and the Near East”

10:15-11:30am:  Greek Religion

Nassos Papalexandrou, University of Texas, Austin
“Frustrating Fragments and Messy Contexts: Orientalizing Cauldrons and their Significance in Greek Religion”

Maya Muratov, Adelphi University
“A Headless Half-Horse, Three Bottomless Amphorae, and a Few Scythian Arrows on the Temenos of Pantikapaion: Sacrifice or Magic?”

11:30-11:45am            COFFEE BREAK

11:45-1:30pm:  Greek Mysteries

Radcliffe G. Edmonds III, Bryn Mawr College
“Broken Snatches of Sweet Melody: Piecing Together the Orphic Rhapsodies”

Thomas Blanton, Luther College
“Significant Nonsense: Denotation and Connotation in the ‘Great’ Tablet from Thurii”

Sandy Blakely, Emory University
“Broken Data, Robust Models: A Digital Response to the Samothracian Mysteries”

1:30-3:00pm            LUNCH BREAK

3:00-4:00pm: Greek Ritual

Esther Eidinow, University of Nottingham, and Lisa Maurizio, Bates College
“Fragments and Fabrications: Reconstructing Women’s Ritual Competence”

4:00-4:15pm            COFFEE BREAK

4:15-5:30pm: Greece and Rome

Shane Hawkins, Carleton University
“Hipponax and the Umbrella Man”

Dan-el Padilla Peralta, Stanford University
“Religion in Fragments: Naevius at the Crossroads of Greece and Rome”

5:30-6:45pm:  Etruria and Italia

Mareile Haase, University of Toronto
“Piecing Together Etruscan Religion: The Case of Sacrificial Representations”

Tanja Van Loon, University of Groningen
“Interpreting Votive Deposits: The Cult Place at Laghetto del Monsignore”

7:45 pm: BANQUET (at the Hope Club, 6 Benevolent Street)

Sunday April 29th 2012

9:00-10:45am:  Roman Religion

Laetitia LaFollette, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
“Why erect a statue of a Vestal? Piecing together Roman attitudes towards the Priestly Body”

John Bert Lott, Vassar College
“A Prophet of the Dea Syria”

10:45-11:15am            COFFEE BREAK

11:15-12:45pm:  Roman Ritual

Lydia Herring-Harrington, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
“Musical Performance and Animal Sacrifice in Roman Private Rituals: The Evidence of Painted Images”

Blair Fowlkes Childs, New York University
“Cult Site(s), a Proscaenium cum columnis, and Rituals at the Aventine Dolichenum in Rome”

12:45-2:00pm:   Late Antiquity

Seamus O’Neill, Memorial University (Newfoundland)
“Reconstructing Platonic Demonologies: A Case Study in Augustine”

Andromache Karanika, University of California at Irvine
“Reconstructing the Greek Wedding Rituals in Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium”