COLLOQUIUM at the BM: Egypt and empire: religious identities from Roman to modern times

https://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/events/2622_902_EgyptcolloquiumDec2015-programme010915.pdf

10.00 Welcoming remarks
Neal Spencer, British Museum
12.05 Evidencing God’s favour:
contesting the flood in medieval Egypt
John Cooper, University of Exeter
12.35 Lunch
Empire and innovation
Chair: Roberta Mazza, University of Manchester

13.45 Religious calendars and imperial technologies of synchronization in semi-colonial Egypt
On Barak, Tell Aviv University
14.15 Language choice in Egypt against the background of Roman law
Sofía Torallas Tovar, University of Chicago 14.45 Settlements in transition: Late Roman and early Islamic towns of the north-east Delta and beyond
Alison Gascoigne, University of Southampton
10.10 Archives and identities
Chair: Elisabeth O’Connell, British Museum
10.20 The 20th-century invention of cosmopolitan Egypt
Will Hanley, Florida State University
10.50 Visible identities: in search of Egypt’s Jews in papyri from early Islamic Egypt (AD 600–1000)
Petra Sijpesteijn, Leiden University
11.20 Coffee break The environment
Chair: Dominic Rathbone, KCL
11.35 What’s faith got to do with it? A diachronic perspective on empire, land, and religion
Katherine Blouin, University of Toronto
15.15 Coffee break Image/icon
Chair: Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, KCL
15.30 The question of gods in arms in pagan Roman Egypt: somehow a matter of greaves
Vincent Rondot, Musée du Louvre
16.00 The Egyptian icon from pagan votives to the Christian panel
Jas’ Elsner, University of Oxford
16.30 End of session
17.30 Keynote lecture
Egyptian religious identities under imperial rule: critical reflections
Roger Bagnall, New York University
Friday 11 December Minorities and majorities
Chair: Venetia Porter, British Museum
10.00 Anti-Judaism in Egypt: from Alexandria to Fustat
David Nirenberg, University of Chicago
10.30 Rethinking persecutions: P. Ryl. 3 469 and the Manichaeans in Egypt
Roberta Mazza, University of Manchester
11.00 Coptic texts and the transition from Roman to Islamic rule (6th–8th century)
Phil Booth, University of Oxford
11.30 Coffee break
Dress identification
Chair: Amandine Mérat, British Museum
11.45 Burial practices in Roman and Late Antique Egypt: continuity and change
Cäcilia Fluck, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst
12.15 The mantle of ascetic authority in Late Antique Egypt: enduring symbol, changeable garment
Thelma Thomas, New York University
12.45 Fitting in/standing out: dress and identity of Christians and Muslims in Mamlūk Egypt
Judith Kindinger, Leiden University
13.15 Lunch Mapping faith
Chair: Roberta Tomber, British Museum
14.15 Abraham’s mission and Moses’ cosmography in the Christian topography of Kosmas Indikopleustes Maja Kominko, Arcadia
14.45 Where did all the Christians go? Peasants and tribesmen of the Fayyum (AD 1060–1240)
Yossef Rapoport, Queen Mary University of London
15.15 Coffee break Communicating difference Chair: Mariam Rosser-Owen, V&A
15.30 The role of military elite in early Islamic Egypt (AD 640–950)
Hugh Kennedy, SOAS
16.00 Languages of empire and languages of Egypt Arietta Papaconstantinou, University of Reading
16.30 The land of Egypt is the garden of the LORD: the flowering of Jewish culture in medieval Cairo
Ben Outhwaite, University of Cambridge 17.00 End of session