Call For Papers

Gender, Identity, and Authority in Late Antiquity

March 20-23, 2025

The Society for Late Antiquity is pleased to announce the sixteenth biennial meeting of Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity, which will be held at The University of Tulsa, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We encourage papers that investigate issues and aspects of gender, identity, and/or authority within the broader late antique world, either in relation to one another or on their own. This thematic scope is intentionally broad, allowing for many different approaches and from a host of disciplines and methodologies. Gender, for example, might include the impact of religion or other factors on ideas of the family, sex, and sexuality, understandings of the nature of gender differences, or conceptions of identity and authority in relationship to the gendered or genderless self or other. Likewise, identity might focus on its self-perception or ascription by others, its potential to be malleable, situational, or contested, or its various components, like ethnicity, political allegiance, religious affiliation, or class. Finally, authority might interrogate its attribution to or expectation for a particular person (e.g., an empress or saint), place (e.g., Rome), or thing (e.g., a text or creed), the mechanisms for its attainment or rejection, such as tradition, merit, or force, or its realization of lack thereof, either as an actual fact or ideal.

Abstracts (no more than 500 words) for papers presenting original scholarship should be submitted for consideration no later than October 1, 2024.

Conference email: shiftingfrontiersxvi@gmail.com