CRASIS Funded Events

Crasis Funded Events

CRASIS brings together experts in the Graeco-Roman world and Near Eastern studies —Classical Greece, the Hellenistic world, the Roman Empire, Judaism, Christian and Islamic origins— at the University of Groningen and the Protestant Theological University in Groningen. Its aim is to advance interdisciplinary study of the interplay between culture, religion and society in antiquity. CRASIS stimulates collaboration between students, PhD candidates, and senior staff from different departments and faculties in Groningen, and offers opportunities to interact with scholars in similar fields in the Netherlands and abroad. CRASIS also encourages initiatives to bring the ancient world to a wider public.

CRASIS has a limited amount of funding available for sponsoring events related to the CRASIS community and goals. The next round of CRASIS funding calls will be released in early May.

If the funding is awarded, a short paragraph describing the event and accompanied by illustrations (photos, videos, weblinks) should be submitted to the secretary. This will be posted on the CRASIS website.

Upcoming Funded Events

International Conference - Language and Cultural Interactions in the Roman World: the Impact of Inscriptions

Registration is now open for the CRASIS-funded conference titled "Language and Cultural Interactions in the Roman World: The Impact of Inscriptions," scheduled for March 6-7, 2025, in Groningen. This event promises insightful discussions led by prominent scholars including Prof. Dr. Alex Mullen from Nottingham/Oxford, Prof. Dr. Bruno Rochette from Liège, and Prof. Dr. Silvia Orlandi, who will attend as the president of the Association Internationale d’Épigraphie Grecque et Latine (AIEGL).

Attendees can expect a comprehensive exploration of how inscriptions shaped communication and cultural dynamics within the Roman world. To register, please visit the following link here. Additional information about the program is available on our website.

This conference is organized by the OIKOS Research Group Cultural Interactions in the Ancient World, with coordinators Valentina Vari (v.vari@rug.nl), Caroline van Toor (c.j.toor@rug.nl), Prof. Dr. Onno van Nijf, and Dr. Saskia Peels-Matthey. Don’t miss this opportunity to deepen your understanding of ancient languages and their impact on Roman society.

International Workshop - Bridging Ancient Rome with the Far East: Re-imagining Silk Road Interactions

The upcoming conference, "Bridging Ancient Rome with the Far East: Re-imagining Silk Road Interactions," is scheduled for March 21st at the Courtroom of the Faculty of Religion. It invites scholars, enthusiasts, and professionals to explore the rich cultural, intellectual, and artistic exchanges of the ancient Silk Roads. The event will feature speakers from diverse fields like Art History, History, and International Relations. Each will provide unique insights into the civilizations that flourished along these crucial trade and cultural pathways.

Our keynote speaker, Prof. Oliver Moore, renowned for his expertise in Chinese Language and Culture at Groningen University, will lay the groundwork for a series of presentations that integrate academic research with museological insights. Dr. William Figueroa, Assistant Professor of History and Theory of International Relations at Groningen University, will discuss the geopolitical dynamics between China and the Middle East as influenced by historical Silk Road interactions. Additional contributors, such as Dr. Yu-ping Luk, curator at the British Museum, and Denise Campbell, Head Curator at Keramiekmuseum Princessehof, will deepen our understanding by juxtaposing scholarly perspectives with the practical challenges and opportunities of curating Silk Road artifacts.

The conference will conclude with an enriching experience at the Princessehof Museum in Leeuwarden, guiding attendees through the "Wu Zetian" exhibition, which illuminates the profound impact of the Silk Roads on artistic endeavors during the reign of China's first and only female empress. For more information and to register for the conference, please follow this link or contact the lead organizer, Maya Xinyu Dong (ReMa Arts and Culture), at x.dong.2@rug.nl.

Previous Funded Events

Interdisciplinary Workshop: Materiality Matters (11/12/2024)

Organisers: Rachel Emma Phillips, Junior Fellow at the GIA; Sofia Voutsaki, Professor of Greek Archaeology at the GIA; Merlijn Veltman, PhD candidate in Archaeology at Leiden University

This workshop, provisionally titled Materiality Matters, aims to facilitate an interdisciplinary discussion on materiality and its different applications within the ancient world. Recent years have seen an increased interest in materiality within archaeological studies: there is now a substantial body of theoretical work on materiality but fewer studies that explore its applications to specific bodies of evidence. This workshop aims to bring together scholars with a wide range of different specialisms, to explore the various ways that materiality can be used to develop new interdisciplinary approaches to bodies of material often viewed from a more traditional perspective. How can we combine, for example, an archaeological focus on object agency with an art historical focus on imagery?

At the workshop, each speaker will present (in ten minutes) on their approach to materiality and its uses within their specific research area. These presentations will be followed by extended discussions  centred around three key themes: Materiality and Text, Materiality and Imagery, and Materiality and Burial. By bringing together participants (both staff members and PhD students) from different departments at the University of Groningen, as well as speakers from the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University, this workshop will promote collaboration and exchange between scholars working in the Netherlands, who are interested in similar approaches but have expertise in different areas.

Workshop: “Landscape Archaeology and ancient Italy” (31/10/2024)

Organisers: Dr. Bert Nijboer, Dr. Lidewijde de Jong, Dr. Chris Dickenson and Dr. Tymon de Haas 

The event commemorated the achievements of Prof. Dr. Peter Attema during his illustrious career and aligns closely with many of the objectives of CRASIS. Prof. Attema has specialized in the landscape archaeology of the Mediterranean, primarily focusing on Italy, and his research has spanned a broad chronological range from Prehistorical to Historical periods. The lineup of speakers, consisting of both archaeologists and ancient historians, covered a scope that mirrors Prof. Attema’s expansive interests.

This event was not only academic in nature but also designed to facilitate interdisciplinary exchange among the speakers, including the keynote address. The day’s proceedings concluded with a valedictory speech by Prof. Attema, transforming the occasion into a celebratory gathering complete with a reception in the prestigious settings of the Senaatskamer and the Academy Building. This combination of scholarly presentations and festive elements honored Prof. Attema's contributions to the field and his impact on the academic community.

International conference: Understanding difficult poetry: the parodos of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (22/05/2023)

Organisers: Dr. Saskia Peels-Matthey, Prof. dr. Felix Budelmann

How did ancient Greek audiences understand and respond to the complex poetry found across various performance genres? How did they react to innovative elements in these texts—such as new versions of myths, unconventional views on persons and deities, or novelty in language itself? Classicists have often pondered these questions, recognizing that traditional philological methods are insufficient alone. This workshop seeks to address these challenges through an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating insights from classical philology, literature, linguistics, psychology, history of religion, and ancient material culture, alongside a theatre practitioner. We will focus particularly on the 'parodos' of Aeschylus' Agamemnon (104-257), a passage known for its elusive, ambiguous, and visually rich language describing the events at Aulis at the outset of the Trojan War.

We aim to explore various aspects of audience reception:

• Ambiguity: How audiences interpret ambiguous words and phrases and adjust their understanding based on new information.
• Conceptual complexity: Audience strategies for navigating the passage’s poetic language, including neologisms and logical inconsistencies.
• Intertextuality: How audiences use their knowledge of myths and other texts to make sense of the passage.
• Visualization: How audiences visualize the narrative, influenced by contemporary images like vase paintings or votive reliefs.
• Listening vs. reading: The impact of experiencing the passage through performance, involving singing and dancing by a chorus, compared to reading the text.
• Religious innovations: How novel portrayals of the goddess Artemis in the passage interact with the audience’s existing religious beliefs.

Seminar / Workshop: Inequality in the Roman world (17/05/2023)

Organisers: Bart Danon, Arjan Zuiderhoek and Miko Flohr

In his work, "Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization" (Harvard 2018, pp. 10-45), economist Branko Milanovic suggests that while new technologies have exacerbated economic inequality within Western countries, globalization has concurrently lessened disparities between countries, as evidenced by rising middle-class incomes in places like China and India nearing Western levels. This raises an intriguing parallel with the Roman Empire: substituting 'incorporation into the empire' for 'new technologies,' one might explore whether a similar dynamic occurred in ancient times. Specifically, did Roman imperialism foster increased inequality within its regions or provinces—where local landowning elites could enhance their economic power over rural producers under the aegis of the empire—and simultaneously produce equalizing effects between regions by standardizing economic and extractive processes across the empire? This analysis suggests that Roman imperialism acted as both an equalizing force at the empire-wide level and a disequalizing force at the regional level. However, the question remains whether geographic, climatic, and resource differences, along with varied historical trajectories and local dependencies, were too pronounced, resulting in merely superficial similarities across the empire that masked significant local variations in inequality and economic development.

Public Lecture: The Mystery of Time in Ancient Judaism (04/04/2023)

Organisers: Arjen Bakker

This lecture opens recent research on Judaism in the Greco-Roman world to a broad audience. Through texts, objects, and images, it reveals how ancient Judaism contemplated the organization of time. Time calculation and calendars played a significant role, as did the segmentation of history into successive periods. Thinkers pondered the relationship between the present, past, and future, seeking to discern a hidden structure of time.

An elaborate set of ideas about secrets and mysteries linked to rituals that shaped daily life emerged. Time was conceived as an abstract principle underlying the cosmic order. The lecture will highlight exchanges between Jewish thought and Greek philosophical traditions, illustrated with text excerpts from the Dead Sea Scrolls, a mysterious object resembling a sundial, and images from ancient synagogue mosaic floors.