Plenary Speakers at the Sixteenth Conference (2011)

(from the archive)

Opening Lecture

Guy Stroumsa:  “Athens, Jerusalem, Mecca: The Patristic Crucible of the Abrahamic Religions”

Closing Lecture

Averil Cameron: “Can Christians Do Dialogue?”

Evening Speakers

Lewis Ayres: “Grammar, Polemic and the Development of Patristic Exegesis 150 – 250”

Sarah Coakley : “Prayer, Politics and the Trinity: Vying Models of Authority in Third and Fourth Century Debates on Prayer and ‘Orthodoxy’”

Mark Vessey: ‘Plurimi pertransibunt: the Translators of the King James Version and the Church Fathers’

Plenary Speakers

George Bozinis: “John Chrysostom and the State”

Annewies van den Hoek : “Execution as Entertainment: the Roman Context of Martyrdom”

Hervé Inglebert: « Le problème de la formation intellectuelle des clercs : d’Augustin à Cassiodore »

Susan Ashbrook Harvey: “The Sorrow of Eve:  Lamentation and Penance in Syriac Tradition”

Lorenzo Perrone: “Origen’s Confessions: Recovering the Traces of a Self-Portrait”

Therese Fuhrer: “Augustine in Milan: the Easter Crisis of 386”

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe: “Diabolical problems in Early Christian Thought”

Richard Price: “The Theology of the Councils: Resources and Limitations”

Samuel Rubenson: “The Formation and Reformations of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers”

Josef Lössl: “Memory as History? Patristic Perspectives” 

George Zografidis: “Is a Patristic Aesthetics possible? The Eastern Paradigm Re-examined”

Kazuhiko Demura: “The concept of Heart in Augustine of Hippo: its Emergence and Development”

Plenary Speakers at the Fifteenth Conference (2007)

(from the archive)

Opening Lecture

Rowan Williams: ‘Tempted as we are’: Christology and the Analysis of the Passions

Closing Lecture

Frances Young: ‘Creation and Human Being: the forging of a distinct Christian discourse’

Evening Speakers

Winrich Löhr: ‘Christianity as Philosophy – perspectives and problems of an ancient intellectual project’

Bart Ehrman: ‘Forgery and Counterforgery in the Early Christian Tradition’

Pauline Allen: ‘Portrayals of the Theotokos ’

Plenary Speakers

Glen Bowersock: ‘Helena’s Bridle, Ethiopian Christianity, and Syriac Apocalyptic’

Richard Sorabji: ‘Conscience: the Graeco-Roman Contribution’

Claudia Rapp: ‘Exemplarity and Imitation in late Antique Christianity’

Sebastian Brock : ‘Dramatic Poems on Biblical Topics in Syriac’

Jan Den Boeft: ‘Delight and Imagination: Ambrose’s Hymns’

M. Kazakov: ‘Letters of Western Bishops to the Emperor Theodosius I and relations between the Eastern and Western Churches at the end of the IV Century’

Pier Franco Beatrice: ‘Augustine’s longing for Holiness and the Problem of Monastic Illiteracy’

Bronwen Neil: ‘Blessed are the Rich: Leo the Great and Roman Poor’

Susan Wessel: ‘Mind and Sensation in Gregory of Nyssa’

Claire Sotinel: ‘Ancient Christianity and the techniques of  information’

Ulrich Volp: ‘That unclean spirit has assaulted you from the very beginning’: John Chrysostom and Suicide

Marie-Odile Boulnois: “Dieu jaloux”: Embarras et controverses autour d’un nom divin dans la littérature patristique

Plenary Speakers at the Fourteenth Conference (2003)

(from the archive)

Opening Lecture

P. Cox Miller: “Visceral Seeing: the Holy Body in Late Antiquity”

Closing Lecture

A. di Berardino: “The Christianization of Social Time in the Fourth Century”

Evening Speakers

J. Lieu: “Memory and Identity: the Early Christian Discovery of a Past”

P. Rousseau: “Human Nature and its Material Setting in Basil of Caesarea’s Sermons on the Creation”

A.M. Ritter: “Augustine and the Patriarch Photius on Religion and Politics”

Plenary Speakers

J. W. Drijvers: “Cyril of Jerusalem: A Bishop and his City”

R. Dodaro: “Between the two Cities: Political and Theological Virtues in Augustine of Hippo”

G. Stroumsa: “Christ’s Laughter: Docetic Origins Reconsidered”

J. Lienhard: “Two Friends of Athanasius:  Marcellus of Ancyra and Apollinarius of Laodicea”

E. Rébillard: “The Church, the Christians and the Dead in Late Antiquity”

C. Markschies: “Christians and Asclepius? Ancient Christianity and the Healing Cults”

R. Lane Fox; “Augustine’s Soliloquies and the Historian”

Archbishop R. D. Williams: “Augustine’s Christology”

S.B. Gajano: “Saints and Hagiographies between Mediterranean Late Antiquity and Medieval Western Christianity: the role of Gregory the Great”

P. Allen: “The Syrian Church through Bishops’ Eyes: the Letters of Theodoret and Severus of Antioch”

B. Leyerle: “Monks and Other Animals”

M. Vinzent: “Postcolonial Patristics”

PhD studentships - Call for Applications

Call for Applications                                                   reference number 18/2017

The Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies (Max-Weber-Kolleg) at the University of Erfurt invites applications for up to 4

doctoral positions for Ph.D. projects

Pay category E 13 TV-L (65 %)

in the fields of Religious Studies, Sociology, Philosophy, History, Classics and related subjects within the framework of the International Research Training Group (IGDK) “Resonant Self–World Relations in Ancient and Modern Socio-Religious Practices” directed by Prof. Dr. Jörg Rüpke and Prof. Dr. Hartmut Rosa (Erfurt) and Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Spickermann and Prof. Dr. Irmtraud Fischer (Graz).

The positions are to be filled by 1 October 2017 for a period of 36 months.

The project is a cooperation between the Max-Weber-Kolleg at the University of Erfurt and the University of Graz. Participants are required to spend one academic year at the cooperating university in the second year of their term.

As an International Research Training Group, the programme’s primary language is   English.

Requirements

·       Excellent degree in one of the above named  disciplines

·       Knowledge of English, German (at least reading skills, candidates without knowledge of German are requested to take courses), and other relevant  languages

·       Willingness to cooperate with colleagues within the interdisciplinary research environment of the Max-Weber-Kolleg, in particular the IGDK, and the University of Graz

·       Willingness to take part in the joint study programme and to move to the University of Graz for one academic year

Core research fields and project suggestions in the framework of the IDGK are outlined on the programme’s website https://doktoratsprogramm-antike-kulturen.uni-graz.at/de/akme/ (cf. “Showcases”). Further proposals developed by applicants for research projects that fit the framework of “Resonant Self–World Relations” in the above named disciplines are welcome. For more information about the Max-Weber-Kolleg and the IGDK please see: https://www.uni- erfurt.de/max-weber-kolleg/projekte/forschungsgruppen/igdk/.

Application Deadline

Please submit your application with CV, copies of your final school and university degrees, a copy   of your MA or diploma thesis, one letter of recommendation and an outline of the PhD project you would like to pursue (max. 5 pages) with a stringent discussion of your research questions, the state of research on the topic, the methodological approach and the leading hypotheses as well as a working  schedule  and  projected  date  of  completion  as  pdf-files  (maximum  of  10  MB)  by   21 May 2017 to:

University of Erfurt • Max-Weber-Kolleg • mwk.bewerbungen@uni-erfurt.de

Comments/Remarks

The University of Erfurt is an equal opportunity employer in compliance with the Thuringian Equal Opportunities Act (Thüringer Gleichstellungsgesetz). Handicapped applicants are given preference in cases of equal qualification.

Direct informal enquiries may be made to Dr. Elisabeth Begemann (elisabeth.begemann@uni- erfurt.de).

The University of Erfurt does not refund any costs incurred in the application process. Interviews will be conducted on 20 and 21 June 2017.

Publication of Fortunatianus' Commentary on the Gospels

The CSEL edition of the rediscovered Commentarii in evangelia (Commentary on the Gospels) by the fourth-century bishop Fortunatianus of Aquileia has now been published.

Dr Lukas J. Dorfbauer, Mitarbeiter of the CSEL and editor of the volume, has supplemented his 2012 identification of the almost-complete text in an early ninth-century anonymous manuscript (Köln, Dombibliothek, HS 17) with numerous secondary witnesses to the tradition. These and the history of the text are treated in a lengthy introduction which precedes the full critical text and apparatus, and extensive indices.

The volume, CSEL 103, is available from De Gruyter as a hard-back book or electronic text, and individual chapters are available for download at a fraction of the price of the whole book.

Also to be published by De Gruyter, later this year, as extra seriem volumes in the CSEL edition, are a collection of studies from the 2015 conference on Fortunatianus in Salzburg (Fortunatianus Redivivus) and an English translation of the commentary.

The Eusebius Essay Prize Submissions now being accepted

The Eusebius Essay Prize, of £500, is offered annually for the best essay submitted on a subject connected with any aspect of early Christian history, broadly understood as including the first seven centuries AD/CE. Scholars in any relevant discipline (theology, classics, late antique studies, Middle Eastern Studies etc.), whether established in their field or graduate students, are encouraged to enter the competition. Submissions from younger scholars are particularly welcomed.
The essay should not exceed 8,000 words, including footnotes, and should be submitted by 30 September 2017. A judgement will be made at the end of November 2017 (the editors reserve the right not to award the prize if no essay of significant quality is submitted).
The essay of the successful candidate will be published in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History. Other submissions entered into the competition may also be recommended for publication.
All essays should be sent by e-mail attachment (with Eusebius Essay Prize in the subject line), prepared to journal style, to Mrs Mandy Barker at jeh@robinson.cam.ac.uk.

Recent Eusebius Prize winning essays - free to access

In Memoriam Professor Maureen Tilley

With great sadness, we have learned from her Husband Terry that our colleague and presenter of last year's conference, Professor Maureen Tilley has died. She was professor of theology, doing research on early Christianity, late antiquity, but was also an expert on the formation of the modern Catholic church. She died on 3 April of pancreatic cancer. Her paper ('Pseudo-Cyprian and the rebaptism controversy in Africa'), given at the conference, she had, however, submitted and we are glad that it will be published in the forthcoming conference proceedings.
Maureen was a long-standing participant of our conference, let me only remind us of a few earlier contributions of her: In SP 27 (1993), 405-8 she published 'Understanding Augustine Misunderstanding Tyconius', in SP 33 (1997), 260-5 'From Separatist Sect to Majority Church: The Ecclesiology of Parmenian and Tyconius', in SP 35 (2001), 330-7 'Theologies of Penance during the Donatist Controversy', in SP 40 (2006), 121-6 'Mary in Roman Africa: Evidence for Her Cultus'. We will all dearly miss her.

For her obituary of Fordham University, see here.