Conference on Editorial Problems: CEP 2011

“Erasure History,” the Forty-Seventh Conference on Editorial Problems, convened by John Marshall (University of Toronto), will be held on Friday 11 November 2011 in Madden Hall, St Michael's College, and on Saturday, 12 November in Room 318 of the Jackman Humanities Building, 170 St George Street, University of Toronto.

From Antiquity to the early middle ages, lost texts may outnumber survivors. The reconstructive efforts of historiography in general and textual editing in particular must grapple with the way in which the poverty of preservation conditions scholarly efforts. "Erasure History" names the effort to think through significant historical problems as if a crucial surviving source were instead among the lost. This endeavour of programmatically holding data in abeyance is meant to illuminate the conditions under which we actually labour and to facilitate fresh consideration of, and renewed humility before, the generative problems of Western historical scholarship.

The purpose of the workshop is to bring together students and scholars from disciplines that study the ancient Mediterranean world historically to participate in a thought experiment with methodological significance. The workshop's participants will consider the status of "the archive" of Mediterranean Antiquity by abstaining from an important source in analysis of a literary/historical problem.

Several prominent scholars from North American Universities have been invited to think and write provisionally in contradiction to their specialized knowledge of a key topic in their field. The goal of the exercise is to understand better the problems under investigation by understanding better the status of the archive that is the basis for their analysis.

Preliminary Program

The following schedule is provisional; changes will be posted as they become available.

FRIDAY, 11 NOVEMBER 2011

INTRODUCTION AND CLASSICAL SOURCES
9:30   Opening remarks
Conference Introduction: Erasure History
John Marshall, University of Toronto

10:00   Odyssey Erased: The Issue of the Odyssey's Influence
Presenter: Jonathan Burgess, University of Toronto
Respondent: TBA

10:45   Coffee

11:00   Tacitus by a Broken Thread: Senatus Consultam Gnaius Pius in Epigraphic Sources Alone
Presenter: Edward Champlin, Princeton University
Respondent: TBA

11:45   Lunch

ANCIENT JUDAISM
13:00   Newer Songs: Early Judaism without the Psalms
Presenter: Eva Mrozcek, University of Indiana, Bloomington
Respondent: Dan Machiela, McMaster University

13:45   Synagogues without Rabbis or Christians?
Presenter: Anders Runesson, McMaster University
Respondent: John Marshall, University of Toronto

14:30   Coffee

EARLY CHRISTIANITY
14:45 Synoptic Problem, What Synoptic Problem? A World without Mark
Presenter: Mark Goodacre, Duke University
Respondent: John Kloppenborg, University of Toronto

15:30 Robbing Peter of Paul: Recentering the Beginnings of Christianity
Presenter: John Gager, Princeton University
Respondent: Peter Richardson, University of Toronto

SATURDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2011

TEXTUAL CRITICISM
9:45   The Late Konstantine Tischendorf: Textual Criticism without Sinaiticus
Presenter: Eldon Epp, Harvard University
Respondent: David Kaden, University of Toronto

10:30   Coffee

10:45   Climate Change: If Egypt Weren't so Dry
Presenter: Giovanni Bazanna, Harvard University
Respondent: Sarah Rollens, University of Toronto

LATE ANTIQUITY
11:15   Nag Hammadi without Heresy
Presenter: Nicola Denzey-Lewis, Brown University
Respondent: Nick Schoenhoffer, University of Toronto

12:30   Lunch

13:45   Just another Provincial Family?
Early Christian Women and Early Christian Martyrdom without the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas
Presenter: Kate Cooper, University of Manchester
Respondent: Erin Vearncomb, University of Toronto

14:30   Coffee

14:45   History without the Historian: Removing Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History from the Archive
Presenter: James Corke-Webster, University of Manchester
Respondent: Tony Burke, York University

CONCLUSION
15:30 General discussion
Closing remarks

Acknowledgements

Erasure History is funded by an Aid to Research Workshops and Conferences grant awarded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, with additional support from the Centre for Jewish Studies, the Department for the Study of Religion, the Department of Classics, and the Centre for Medieval Studies in the University of Toronto.

Registration

Pre-registration is necessary to observe or attend. Pre-registration will open on 20 October: please follow this link. Registration costs will cover coffees and lunches.

Information for visitors

Visitors to the University of Toronto, and also to city, may wish to consult the CEP's information pages, elsewhere on this site.