Spatialising Practices: Theory, Text, Practice. Towards a Redescriptive Companion to Graeco-Roman Antiquity – A Response. (original) (raw)
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The Routledge Handbook of Literature and Space, ed. Robert T. Tally Jr. (Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge, 2017)., 2017
This essay explores the disciplinary intersections between spatial theories, human geography, urban anthropology, cultural sociology, classical and religio-historical studies, and text analysis. Recent studies of ancient history, social and religious formations in antiquity, and classical culture have begun to appropriate spatiality theory and human geography as analytical tools for the interpretation of classical traditions (like epic) and cultural and social formations (like the way in which constructions of space[s] produced religious changes). Textual representations of space feature alongside other representational practices like ritual, procession, sacred architecture, as one in a range of spatialising practices in the production of social space. This essay will show how textual representations of space are embedded in a wider encompassing set of spatialising practices. As specific example this essay will analyse the representation of religious space in a foundational early Christian text (the Gospel of John) in the manner in which it represents both the city of Jerusalem and the temple in it, as well as locating its readers in the discursive context of the Roman Empire. In addition, the reception history of the Gospel in its dual effect of anti-imperial and imperial text will get attention it this diachronic study in the history of space and spatial history.
The Disciplines of Geography: Constructing Space in the Ancient World
Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History, 2017
This article serves as introduction to a special double issue of the journal, comprised of seven articles that center on the theme of space and place in the ancient world. The essays examine the ways in which borders, frontiers, and the lands beyond them were created, defined, and maintained in the ancient world. They question the intersection of concrete and fantastical, or real and imagined, that existed in both the ancient and pre-modern world, where distant locations become elaborately embroidered by fantastical constructions, despite the concrete connections of travel, trade, and even military enterprise. ** Note this is a pre-print version of the article **
Space [Cambridge Companion to Roman Historiography]
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This discussion seeks a social-spatial analysis of early Christian martyrology. "Spatiality" is a term that describes "how space and social relations are made through each other; that is, how space is made through social relations, and how social relations are shaped by the space in which they occur."1 Spatial theory contests a view that sees space as a kind of empty container, or an inert point on a map.2 It rather conceives spaces as a dynamic, living phenomenon that people produce, imagine, and live in their interactions with one another and with the places they inhabit. As I hope to show, the dynamic features of space-time the martyr accounts open up belong to a world where there is a contest over place and identity and where imperial ideas are at once repudiated but also embraced to form new modalities. In this regard, these accounts conform to Hardt and Negri's bio-political conceptualization of space-time, adopted from Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. "Events of resistance" they argue, "have the power not only to escape control but also to create a new world."3 Placed against what they call the "smooth space" of the modern Empire capital and its flow creates, "the productivity of the biopolitical event" creates a rupture and reconfiguration of hege-1 Phil Hubbard and Rob Kitchin (eds.). Key Thinkers of Space and Place. 2n ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2011, 499. 2 For this older conception of space, its philosophical and socio-political setting, and the ways in which spatial theory contests that view, David Harvey. By Empire as "smooth space" they describe a place in which "subjectivities glide without substantial resistance or conflict". (Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001, 98.) Their treatment in Commonwealth addresses key objections to their earlier formulation of "smooth space" as furnishing little socio-graphical room for local resistance and socio-geographical space-time practices. For this critique, David Featherstone. Resistance, Space and Political Identities. The Making of Counter-Global Networks. Oxford: Wiley, 2008, 124-127. Hardt and Negri's description of modern Empire contrasts sharply with the ancient Roman one, where there were no "smooth spaces," but rather a continuing contest over identity and time-space in innumerable social spheres, domains, and places. In that context the biopolitical account is more precise.
Bird, Andrew J. Imagining the Urbs and Castra: Roman Spatial Conceptualizations Dr. Langford Independent Study -Spring 2009 The Roman conceptualization of spaces is a complex and interesting subject that ties together various aspects of Roman society throughout their history. Roman spatial conceptualization deals with a variety of subjects pertinent to Roman studies. The most prominent focus in this regard is with cities, but also includes such topics like the Roman frontier, religion, architecture, and more. Although cities (particularly Rome) garner much of the focus in scholarship, there exists a crucial link in Roman spatial conceptualization between Roman military camps and these cities. To illustrate this link between the two, this paper will examine their similarities in terminology, concepts, and other aspects that determine and define their spaces. Additionally, the paper will explore the following questions, which will demonstrate this conceptual link. First, what terms do ancient authors employ to describe both the cities and the camps, and what do these similarities imply? Second, what religious practices and rules are congruent to both the city and the camp in regards to their foundation and consecration? Finally, do the religious and physical spatial correlations of the city and the camp inform us of a deeper understanding of how the Romans conceptualized all their important spaces? Overall, the main argument this paper makes is that although camps represent the physical city of Rome in microcosm, the Roman religious conceptualization of the city also carries over to the camps.