IMC 2020: Sessions

Session 1529: Late Antique Frontiers, I: Authors and Texts

Thursday 9 July 2020, 09.00-10.30

Organiser:	Adrastos Omissi, School of Humanities (Classics), University of Glasgow
Moderator/Chair:	Jonathan Arnold, Department of History, University of Tulsa
Paper 1529-a	Ammianus Marcellinus on Frontier Landscapes and Romanity in the 4th-Century Roman World (Language: English) Conor Whately, Department of Classics, University of Winnipeg, Manitoba Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Language and Literature - Latin
Paper 1529-b	From Aurora to Britannia: Claudian and the Limits of Empire (Language: English) E. V. Mulhern, Department of Greek & Roman Classics Temple University Pennsylvania Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Language and Literature - Latin
Paper 1529-c	'It's the End of the World as We Know It … and I Feel Fine': Gregory of Tours, c. 594 (Language: English) Allen Jones, Department of History Troy University Alabama Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Ecclesiastical History
Abstract	This session explores constructions of border and liminality within the works of late antique Latin authors. Our first paper (Whatley) examines Ammianus Marcellinus and how the late Empire's last great Latin historian conceptualised borders and the lands that bounded them, asking how space was understood in his text. Our second paper (Mulhern) explores the limits of Roman power as imagined in the writings of the poet Claudian, exploring the disjunctures between Claudian's imaginings and the real reach of the imperial court's influence. Finally, we take a look at how Gregory of Tours (Jones) explores the boundaries between this world and the next, and between past and future.