TORCH Network 'The Long History of Identity, Ethnicity and Nationhood' are organising a two-day workshop on '‘What is the city but the people?’ Urban Identities between the Civic and the Ethnic'. This workshop is focused on the interplay between civic and ethnic identities – two forms of collective belonging usually seen as fundamentally different – and takes a comparative approach to their construction in urban contexts from Archaic Greece to the Ottoman Empire. The registration fee is £10, and coffee breaks, lunches, and a wine reception will be provided. In order to attend please RSVP to identity@TORCH.ox.ac.uk by Sunday the 6th of March.
The programme is as follows:
Friday 11 March
9.00 Registration & Coffee
9:30 Opening Remarks from Ilya Afanasyev (University of Oxford)
9.45 Session 1
Chair: Josephine Quinn (University of Oxford)
Jonathan Hall (University of Chicago)
Communities of Place and the Place of Community in the Early Greek City
Glenn Bowman (University of Kent)
Inter-Communal Relations in Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Urban Settings: Inquiries into the Social Contexts of ‘Space Sharing'
11.15 Coffee Break
11.45-13.15 Session 2
Chair: Arezou Azad (University of Birmingham)
Peter Webb (SOAS)
The Curious Case of the Disappearing Arabs: Social Identity in Medieval Urban Iraq
Eliza Hartrich (University of Oxford)
Citizenship and Ethnicity in Late Medieval Ireland
13.15 Lunch
14.30 Session 3
Chair: Bryan Ward-Perkins (University of Oxford)
Walter Pohl (Institute for Medieval Research, Vienna)
Ethnic and Urban Identities between Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Some Theoretical Reflections
Rosamond McKitterick (University of Cambridge)
Roman Identities in the Early Middle Ages
16.00 Coffee Break
16.30 Session 4
Chair: Catherine Holmes (University of Oxford)
Nicholas Matheou (University of Oxford)
From Ani to Bari: Urban “Armenians” in the East and West of Medieval New Rome
Rachel Goshgarian (Lafayette College)
Inter-faith Interactions and Homosociality in Late Medieval Anatolian Cities
18.00 Wine Reception
Saturday 12 March
9.30 Coffee
10.00 Session 5
Chair: Patrick Lantschner (UCL)
Miri Rubin (QMUL)
Methods and Approaches to Diversity in Cities: Some Medieval Experiences
Amira Bennison (University of Cambridge)
Berber Tribes and Arab Cities? Reflections on the Construction of Urban Identity in Medieval Fes
11.30 Coffee Break
12.00-13.30 Session 6
Chair: Daniel Gerrard (Middlebury College CMRS, Oxford)
Catherine Sykes (University of Cambridge)
Origin Myths and Urban Identities in the Chronicles of Medieval Rus
Oren Margolis (University of Oxford)
The Gaulish Past of Milan and the French Invasion of Italy
13.30 Lunch
14.30 Session 7
Chair: Amira Bennison (University of Cambridge)
Abbey Stockstill (University of Harvard)
A Mediterranean Form in a Maghrebi Context: Understanding Almohad Marrakech
Erin Maglaque (University of Oxford)
Marrying the wrong woman in Renaissance Venice
16.00 Coffee Break
16.30 Session 8
Chair: Miri Rubin (QMUL)
Mikhail Boytsov (Higher School of Economics, Moscow)
The City as a Female from Late Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages
Len Scales (University of Durham)
Communicating Identities in Late-Medieval German Towns
18.30 Dinner for Speakers and Chairs
The Long History of Identity, Ethnicity and Nationhood
Contact name: Ilya Afanasyev
Contact email: ilya.afanasyev@hertford.ox.ac.uk
Audience: Open to all
