Sofia 2024 Call for Papers
For the 2024 Annual Conference in Sofia, the Early Christianity unit will hold two sessions:
Money within Early Christian Life and Imagination
There are numerous clues to the multifaceted ways early Christianity thought about and even to some degree influenced money and its use in both the literary and material record. Early Christian literature from the New Testament onwards discusses the moral implications of monetary wealth as it impinges on issues of morality and ethics; tensions between Christian life and obligations as a resident within the Roman Empire (taxes etc.); and financial obligations towards/benefits received from the church community. Moreover, in some coinage minted under emperors from Constantine onwards, we see the intertwining of Christian symbology with the currency of the Empire, where it participated in a powerful propaganda tool. We are keen to receive treatments of both literary and material evidence, and are interested in papers that address these themes across different geographic and linguistic spheres represented in early Christianity.
We are exploring possibilities for publishing either a special journal issue or edited volume on this theme, which could include some revised contributions offered to this year’s Conference.
Open Call
For our second session, we invite paper proposals that address any topic within the scope of the research unit’s focus. We encourage explorations of biblical and non-biblical early Christian literature, patristics, and materiality, and are open to novel and emerging methodologies as well as more traditional approaches.
