Syracuse 2023 Call for Papers
Space-Mapping in Ancient Chronographic Historiographies
The second meeting of this research unit focuses on the topic of space-mapping. Space-mapping is never a simple endeavor. Imagining and construction "territorial" spaces and boundaries involves matters of ideology, agency and authority; it conveys claims of legitimacy and at times utopian (or dystopian) images. Moreover, at times, multiple pictures of partially overlapping "territorial spaces" were held simultaneously, each communicating its own messages, and ideological space-mapping may or may not reflect historical realities of the past or the present.
In this meeting, we ask how ancient (Near Eastern) historiographies organized and divided "territorial" space, imagined boundaries, border areas, both permeable and impermeable boundaries and the like. We invite speakers to address these questions from a comparative perspective or to trace developments across traditions of the mid- to late first millennium BC.
We plan two sessions around the following sub-topics:
1) The construction, organisation and “mapping” of territorial space
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The intersection of space-mapping with time-mapping
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Scope of histories: universal histories, local histories, various combinations of both
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Scope of constructions of territorial space: 'Four corners of the world', ecumene, empires, house of the king/god or kingdom, 'nation'/ethnie, city, countryside, etc.
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Borderland and borderland studies
2) Imperial and local spaces, practiced and imagined
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Imperial itineraries and movement through space
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First, Second and Third Spaces
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Imagined territorial landscapes
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Hyperbolic claims for actual control of territory
