Impact of Hellenistic Empires

Programme

The Research Group is primarily concerned with the impact of empire on the political organization, social structures, and ideology of local polities of the Ancient Near East in Hellenistic times, on the one hand, and their literary imagination, on the other. The structural changes and historical events affecting Judaea will be both addressed directly and set in their wider, regional and interregional context(s), primarily (but not exclusively) defined as the Seleukid empire at large and Ptolemaic Egypt. Likewise, the question of the relation between, on the one hand, the Hellenistic, imperial setting and its bearings on Judaea and neighbouring polities and, on the other hand, the literary production of the time, will be of central concern. To this end, the Research group intends to bring together historians, social scientists, epigraphists, archaeologists, and text scholars. Although the Research Group will focus on Hellenistic times, its chronological range will also cover Persian and Roman imperial times, and cooperation with Research Groups focusing on these periods as well as on narrowly-defined topics (such as “resistance”) overlapping with the concerns of the Research Group will be considered. 

Keywords:

Hellenistic World, Hellenistic Empires, Social Location of Texts, Empire and Literary Imagination

Chairs

Warsaw 2019 Call for Papers

In the EABS Conference of 2019 the Impact of Hellenistic Empires Research Unit will hold two sessions on the theme of ‘Empire and Historiography’, one session on “The Book of Judith and Empire” and one special session around the newly published book of Paul J. Kosmin. One session on ‘Empire and Historiography’ will bear on ‘Causality and Motivation,’ and participation will be by invitation. The second session will be open to all papers relating to ‘Historiography and Empire’, no emphasis specified. It will be held jointly with the ‘Judaeans in the Persian Empire’ Research Group, and participation will be both by invitation and through a call for papers. The session on “The Book of Judith and Empire” will be both by invitation and through a call for papers.

CfP 1: In the EABS Conference of 2019 the Impact of Hellenistic Empires Research Unit and the ‘Judaeans in the Persian Empire’ Research Unit will hold a joint session on the theme of ‘Empire and Historiography’. We invite papers examining the ideology of and discourse on Empire in any form of historiography documented in Judaea and in neighbouring societies, in a broad range of periods (Persian, Hellenistic, and Early Roman Empire), and/or how the fact of empire impacts historiography. The relevant literature in Judaea includes biblical literature of Persian times (e.g., Deuteronomic history; Chronicles; Prophetic books); works from Hellenistic times (1 Macc; 2 Macc; Daniel); apocrypha; apocalyptic literature, Qumran; Flavius Josephus, and more. Literatures from neighbouring societies may include works composed in ancient Greek, Akkadian, and Demotic. All topics related to ‘Empire and Historiography’, such as the reflection of empire in a specific work, or how the fact of empire impacts this discourse, are welcome. 

CfP2: In the EABS Conference of 2019 the Impact of Hellenistic Empires Research Unit will hold a session on the theme of ‘Empire and Historiography’, with a focus on the sub-topic of ‘Causality and Motivation’. We invite papers examining the ideology and discourse on causality and motivation in any form of historiography documented in Judaea and in neighbouring societies, in a broad range of periods (Persian, Hellenistic, and Early Roman Empire), and/or how the fact of empire impacts this discourse. The relevant literature in Judaea includes biblical literature of Persian times (e.g., Deuteronomic history; Chronicles); works from Hellenistic times (Judith); apocrypha; apocalyptic literature, Qumran; Flavius Josephus, and more. Literatures from neighbouring societies may include works composed in ancient Greek, Akkadian, and Demotic. Topics examined may be, for instance, the impact of specific imperial cultures on a shift in the conceptualization of causality and/or motivation; discourses of causality around empires, such as causality in the rise and fall of empires; motivations in the relationships between empire and local actors; comparative studies on how two or more literary traditions conceive causality and motivation. 

CfP 3: In the EABS Conference of 2019 the Impact of Hellenistic Empires Research Unit will hold a session on the theme of ‘The Book of Judith and Empire’. This topic is understood in a broad way, and all perspectives may be considered. We invite submissions of papers. 

Special Session
In addition to these three sessions, we will also have an invited special session on the book: Kosmin, Paul J. Time and Its Adversaries in the Seleucid Empire. Harvard: Harvard University Press, December 2018.

The session with be chaired by Benedikt Eckhardt. The panelists will include Mette Bundvad, Sylvie Honigman, Thomas Kruger, and Christophe Nihan with Paul J. Kosmin as a respondent.