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Conference: 'Tracing Globalisation: The Circulation of Material Culture in the Iron Age Mediterranean'
CALL FOR PAPERS
Dates: September 12th and 13th, 2024
Location: Vere Gordon Childe Centre, University of Sydney
Organisers: Tamar Hodos (University of Sydney) and Daphne Martin (University of Cambridge)
The Mediterranean Iron Age (c. 1100-600 BCE) is recognised today as one of the Mediterranean’s most dynamic periods. Yet its study falls between disciplines that rarely communicate, resulting in a fragmented approach that isolates communities and cultures from one another, rather than emphasising their coexistence.
This two-day conference explores the circulation of material culture and the role of objects in connecting and disconnecting communities and groups around the broader Iron Age Mediterranean. It seeks to explore new approaches to bridge disciplinary divisions, exchange expertise and lay the foundations for potential future collaborations among Australasian researchers by bringing together advanced HDR candidates, early career and more established scholars across the disciplines of Classical Archaeology, Near Eastern Archaeology, regional Mediterranean prehistories, Ancient History, and History of Art.
We are delighted to have Jeremy Armstrong (University of Auckland) and Lieve Donnellan (University of Melbourne) as our keynote speakers.
We invite papers of up to 20 minutes that adopt diverse, interdisciplinary approaches to the circulation of material culture in the Iron Age Mediterranean. Areas of inquiry may include (but are not limited to):
- Cultural contact, cultural change and cultural continuity
- The role of local agency in the context of wider networks of trade and exchange
- New theoretical developments for approaching the Iron Age Mediterranean (e.g. in network thinking; acculturation theory; multi-scalar perspectives)
- Archaeologies of connectivity, migration and mobility
- Globalisation and glocalisation
- Innovation and knowledge exchange
- Object entanglement and shifting material meanings in migration/mobility contexts
Abstracts of no more than 200 words should be submitted in PDF format either to tamar.hodos@sydney.edu.au or ddm24@cam.ac.uk by July 31st, 2024.
Professor Sir John Boardman (1927-2024)
Sir John Boardman
(Image: Books to the Ceiling)
It is with deep regret that we note the passing of Professor Sir John Boardman, a scholar who left a lasting legacy on ancient Greek studies and who in many ways shaped the study of ancient Greek art over the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.
John Boardman was educated at Cambridge University, where he received his Bachelor and Master degrees in the days before a doctorate was required to establish an academic career. After a few years as a recruit trainer in the British military for his mandatory service, Boardman was appointed Assistant Director at the British School at Athens in 1952, a post he held until 1955. He then took up the position of Assistant Keeper at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, his first post at what would become his academic base. He was appointed to an academic position at Oxford University several years later, and in 1978, he became Lincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art, one of the most prestigious chairs in Classical Archaeology and whose previous incumbents include Sir John Beazley and Bernard Ashmole. Boardman held the Lincoln Professorship until his retirement in 1994. Throughout his career, he received many accolades, including a knighthood in 1989.
While Boardman undertook important excavations on Chios in the 1950s and at the Greek settlement at Tocra (ancient Taucheira) on the Libyan coast in the 1960s, he is best known for his substantial work on Greek art, primarily of the Archaic and Classical periods, and especially the media of vase painting, sculpture, and gemstones. Within each, his scope was broad but his focus razor sharp. Nothing he wrote could be taken lightly; every pronouncement was considered and probing. He covered the Greek world writ large, from the Pillars of Herakles to the Black Sea, up to central Europe, and across the ancient Near East to India. A great connoisseur, Boardman was never a mere cataloguer. His interest in the impact of Greek goods and ideas upon the many peoples with whom the Greeks came into contact was also a vehicle through which he examined ancient lives and beliefs. The cultural variety of the ancient Mediterranean and its adjacent regions was a canvas that engaged his academic curiosity to our ultimate benefit.
It is among these reasons that John Boardman was the scholar Alexander Cambitoglou invited to be the inaugural AAIA Visiting Professor in 1987. In his 2020 autobiography, A Classical Archaeologist’s Life: the story so far (Oxford: Archaeopress), Sir John recounts his ‘unforgettable’ adventures in Australia, where he was as delighted to see colleagues and collections around the nation as he was fascinated by the country’s diverse wildlife and landscapes.
It would be difficult to find another scholar of ancient Greek art who was as prolific an author as Sir John. His books and papers are far too numerous to list here, but we may note that his first published work appeared in 1952 and his most recent in 2024! His volumes have been translated into many languages and incorporated as key texts in university courses world-wide.
His output was not only restricted to the ivory tower. He was a scholar who could easily engage the interested public, and many of his books did just that, especially through his long collaboration with Thames and Hudson to provide full-colour volumes that were accessible as well as informative.
Sir John was also a dedicated teacher who mentored generations of research students from around the world, including the authors of this tribute. We can personally attest the dedicated guidance he always bestowed on his students, offering his incisive views while encouraging us in our own research ideas with warm, genuine support. We are proud to be among the many art historians and archaeologists who stand as his legacy as we guide and nurture the next generation of scholars, and we gratefully acknowledge all that we owe to him. We mourn his passing, which marks the end of an era.
Tamar Hodos & Stavros Paspalas