Call for application - Doctoral workhop in Pompeii

Writing in Urban and Periurban contextx  - Pompeii 11th July  - 15th July, 2016  

 

Whatever their nature, inscriptions are essential evidence for the historian of the Roman world. After a long tradition of studying only the contents of these texts, epigraphy is now paying closer attention to their supports and their contexts. Due to their remarkable preservation, the Campanian cities buried by Mt. Vesuvius provide an incomparable setting for understanding the contexts of various forms of writing. However, conditions of discovery, scholarship, and conservation in these cities raise specific problems regarding the displacement, intentional destruction, and loss of epigraphic evidence in antiquity, as well as modern times.

This doctoral workshop aims at introducing some of the challenges, problems and methods related to the study of writing and its use in urban and periurban spaces. In addition to a presentation of the methods and tools of epigraphy, the workshop will seek to characterize the epigraphic habits of different areas that make up the fabric of a city, both in its everyday and exceptional expressions. We will thus tackle issues such as writing as a means of communication for public authority and community from a wide chronological viewpoint; the contribution of writing to a knowledge of urban topography; writing related to production areas and activities; writing in funerary landscapes, and attitudes toward death. The workshop will build on case studies from the Campanian cities and, possibly, Roman Italy, which will enable a comprehensive understanding of the texts and their archaeological and topographical contexts.

The theme is aimed at students of epigraphy (PhD students or young post-docs), but also and especially at historians and archaeologists whose research issues would overlap with these questions and who have a moderate familiarity with this kind of evidence. The workshop will take place from Monday, 11th July – Friday, 15th July, 2016 in Pompeii. Lessons will be held in French, Italian and English: good skill in these languages is therefore required. The sessions will be organised into thematic working days, with both classwork and fieldwork. The afternoons will be reserved for presentation and discussion of the students’ work.

Conditions for application