Archival Program Information
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Symposium


Greek oil vessel, ca. 550 BC
 
Thursday, June 12, and Friday, June 13, 2008

The Getty Villa


Admission is free. Separate reservations are required for each day of the symposium.

A two-day international conference at the Getty Villa explores how ancient peoples expressed their identities by establishing, constructing, or inventing links with other societies that crossed traditional ethnic and geographic lines. These cross-cultural links complicate, undermine, or give nuance to conventional dichotomies such as self/other, Greek/barbarian, and Jew/gentile.

This conference is the culmination of the 2007–2008 Villa Scholars Program, organized around the work of Villa Professor Erich Gruen. It features four sessions, each with two speakers and one respondent. All papers and responses are precirculated to foster vigorous discussion. The scope of the conference encompasses studies of interconnections and interrelations among Greeks, Romans, Jews, Phoenicians, Persians, Egyptians, Gauls, and Germans.

The sessions include scholars from a variety of disciplines such as history, literature, and material culture. The presenters and respondents constitute a distinguished assemblage: Maria Brosius (University of Newcastle), Emma Dench (Harvard University), Steven Fine (Yeshiva University), Jonathan Hall (University of Chicago), Tonio Hölscher (Universität Heidelberg), Benjamin Isaac (Tel Aviv University), Ann Kuttner (University of Pennsylvania), Lee Levine (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Margaret Miller (University of Sydney), Tessa Rajak (University of Reading), Christopher Tuplin (University of Liverpool), and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (British School of Rome).