Traditions of Eastern Late Antiquity Unit
Co-Sponsored Session with AAR Platonism and Neoplatonism Program Unit
For a session co-sponsored with the AAR Platonism and Neoplatonism program unit, we are interested in proposals related to the reception of Plato and the Platonic tradition in the context of the religious traditions of Eastern Late Antiquity, including Jewish, Christian, and early Islamic voices in that time and place as well as proposals that take comparative approaches to these traditions and contexts.
Enslavement and Forced Labor in Eastern Late Antiquity
In connection to the 2025 presidential theme “freedom,” we invite paper proposals that explore enslavement, forced labor, and incarceration in the religious traditions of eastern late antiquity. Paper proposals might address these themes from theological perspectives, consider the role of race, gender, and ethnicity, and/or touch upon resistance, agency, and personhood in relation to enslavement.
Book Review Panel (invited), reviews of recent books on Mandaeanism by Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, Edmondo Lupieri, and Sandra van Rompaey
This program unit focused on Late Antiquity in the East aims to provide a home for the study of religious traditions that are rooted in Mesopotamia, Persia, and western Asia, particularly those parts that were outside the Roman cultural reach such as Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and Mandaeism. While the unit will focus on late antiquity, many of these traditions, and particularly their extant texts come to us from much later periods, and this scholarly issue will be part of our discussions. In addition, many of the traditions that were born in this time and place also spread to other parts of the world, and the study of them in those forms and contexts also has a place within this program unit, as does investigation of their response to the rise of Islam in the region. In addition, this unit’s focus is not exclusively on those traditions that developed uniquely in this region, but also those which, when transplanted there, had significant evolutions in that milieu that differ from their counterparts in other times and places (e.g. Christianity, Judaism). We likewise encourage research which focuses on the interaction between the various communities and traditions of this place and time.