Call for Papers by Sanja Vucetic
This one-day workshop focuses on queer and transgender scholarship, black feminist and feminist n... more This one-day workshop focuses on queer and transgender scholarship, black feminist and feminist new materialist perspectives, and decolonial and critical race theories in the studies of sexuality, identity, and imperialism in the Roman world and beyond. The workshop aims to convene archaeologists, classicists, and ancient historians researching gender and sexuality in the Roman Empire and archaeologists studying sexuality in other complex societies or historical colonial situations. The objective is to explore ideas arising from relevant theories and methodologies in a more informal format and discuss theoretical models, methods, and datasets within and across disciplines by mixing traditional paper presentations with group discussions and activities.
This one-day workshop focuses on queer and transgender scholarship, black feminist and feminist n... more This one-day workshop focuses on queer and transgender scholarship, black feminist and feminist new materialist perspectives, and decolonial and critical race theories in the studies of sexuality, identity, and imperialism in the Roman world and beyond. The workshop aims to convene archaeologists, classicists, and ancient historians researching gender and sexuality in the Roman Empire and archaeologists studying sexuality in other complex societies or historical colonial situations. The objective is to explore ideas arising from relevant theories and methodologies in a more informal format and discuss theoretical models, methods, and datasets within and across disciplines by mixing traditional paper presentations with group discussions and activities.
Sexuality and gender are critical to understanding how Roman dominance affected social change in ... more Sexuality and gender are critical to understanding how Roman dominance affected social change in communities subject to imperial, social, and sexual hierarchies. Recently, the traditional Romanisation paradigm has been replaced by critical approaches that anchor sexuality dynamics at the centre of conquest and the experience of the Roman Empire (Ivleva and Collins 2020; Madden 2022; Vucetic 2022). Roman imperialism also continues to be positively investigated from a gendered perspective, though the focus remains on the elite (Cornwell and Woolf 2023). These conversations nonetheless remain on the fringes of archaeological discourse. The longstanding critiques, many directed at TRAC/RAC participants, attest to this (Baker 2003; Pitts 2007; Revell 2010). This session aims to integrate the issues of gender and sexuality into traditional questions of Roman archaeology while engaging with the conceptual agendas of interconnectivity, ethnicities, and social inequalities. We particularly welcome papers that discuss the materiality of sexuality and gender in the Roman Empire through an archaeological record using progressive theories such as post-humanist, materialist feminist, globalisation, and queer perspectives. We invite submissions on topics such as (but not limited to):
Sexuality and gender are critical to understanding how Roman dominance affected social change in ... more Sexuality and gender are critical to understanding how Roman dominance affected social change in communities subject to imperial, social, and sexual hierarchies. Recently, the traditional Romanisation paradigm has been replaced by critical approaches that anchor sexuality dynamics at the centre of conquest and the experience of the Roman Empire (Ivleva and Collins 2020; Madden 2022; Vucetic 2022). Roman imperialism also continues to be positively investigated from a gendered perspective, though the focus remains on the elite (Cornwell and Woolf 2023). These conversations nonetheless remain on the fringes of archaeological discourse. The longstanding critiques, many directed at TRAC/RAC participants, attest to this (Baker 2003; Pitts 2007; Revell 2010). This session aims to integrate the issues of gender and sexuality into traditional questions of Roman archaeology while engaging with the conceptual agendas of interconnectivity, ethnicities, and social inequalities. We particularly welcome papers that discuss the materiality of sexuality and gender in the Roman Empire through an archaeological record using progressive theories such as post-humanist, materialist feminist, globalisation, and queer perspectives. We invite submissions on topics such as (but not limited to):
In recent years, the question of cross-cultural effects on sexual identities under colonial rule ... more In recent years, the question of cross-cultural effects on sexual identities under colonial rule became a topic of interests for archaeologists (Voss and Casella 2012; Voss 2008). These works have set the stage for new research in Mediterranean archaeology that probes questions of gender and sexuality in relation to different power dynamics produced through cross-cultural interactions and colonial expansion. Scholars have noted that research on gender and sexuality of the provincial populace is under-theorised and under-studied despite compelling arguments that these are integral to the formation of identities (Joyce 2001; Schmidt and Voss 2000). Others have observed that the physical realities of the ancient world, i.e. architecture, objects, and landscapes, created and maintained the structure of social interactions and gender performances (Severy-Hoven 2102:542; Joshel and Murnaghan 1998:18-20). These works suggest that post-colonial approaches done within the broader context of the Mediterranean world would reveal the complexity, multiplicity and particularity of ancient people, and the nuance of power relations in the physical environment (e.g. Mattingly 2011; Riva and Vella 2006; van Dommelen and Knapp 2010). Moreover, they hint at the wider implications of connections between gender and sexuality to other axes of difference (e.g. class, ethnicity, race, age, and disability).
Interdisciplinary in its scope, this session takes up questions of gender/sexuality within diverse societies of the ancient Mediterranean world, from Prehistory to Roman times. The goal is to present innovative research that is theoretically informed and contextualised in personal and institutionalised forms of gender and sexuality. The session will explore various social discourses through which gender and sexuality are shaped within specific Mediterranean cultural contexts. It aims to instigate a discussion on the ways gender/sexuality studies can be integrated into broader archaeological debates of ancient Mediterranean colonialism, cultural change, relationships of power, and the construction of the material world.
Please submit abstracts by 16th of February 2015 via the EAA website (http://eaaglasgow2015.com/call-for-papers/).
Conference Talks by Sanja Vucetic
Traditionally, lamps have been used for dating purposes, and as such, little attention has been g... more Traditionally, lamps have been used for dating purposes, and as such, little attention has been given to their iconographic reliefs. Due to lamps’ association with ‘mass-production’, sexual imagery decorating lamp discs has typically been viewed as of a lesser significance than those found on vases and wall-paintings. As these small objects were distributed and used across the Roman world and accessible, for an extended period of time, to wider social strata, their sexual imagery can be invaluable to the study of sexual identity formation in different regional contexts within the Roman world. I will present the findings from the first systematic study of sexual imagery on lamps from four sites of the Roman Empire: Ampurias, Carthage, Salamis and Vindonissa. I will offer a re-examination of current approaches to the study of the lamps with sexual imagery and demonstrate the potential of the theoretically informed minor artefact research.
Embedded in the assumption that art acts as an agent of cultural conformity through which social norms are transmitted, the presented study examines lamps from temporal, spatial, stylistic, and iconographic perspectives. Utilising both quantitative and qualitative analysis, the frequency of themes, motifs and their variations is examined, along with identification of possible occurrences of distinctive stylistic and iconographic treatments of the images. The findings of the study present ways through which theoretically informed analysis of the sexual imagery found on lamps addresses the issues in the current Roman sexuality research and emphasises the significance of these often-neglected objects within the wider field of Roman archaeology.
Papers by Sanja Vucetic
New Directions in the Archaeology of Roman Greece: Connectivity, Interaction and Innovation,” at... more New Directions in the Archaeology of Roman Greece: Connectivity, Interaction and Innovation,” at the British School at Athens from Wednesday, May 15th to Friday, May 17th, 2024.
The main goal of this conference is to integrate the research on Greece during the Roman Empire and Greece's position within the wider Roman Mediterranean into the current Roman archaeology scholarship while actively engaging with the conceptual agenda of interconnectivity, identities, and social inequalities. The conference aims to explore how new networks of connectivity and mobility impacted Greek communities amidst the economically, socially, and politically changing climate brought by the Roman Empire. Sixteen papers, presented across three days, will bring together different perspectives on the effects of connections, exchange, and innovation in the region in terms of commodity flow, demography, foodways, religious interaction, social dynamics, and cultural transformations. With a strong focus on cutting-edge approaches, the conference seeks to establish an interdisciplinary dialogue, challenge existing paradigms, and stimulate fresh perspectives on the complex interplay between global connections and local innovations in Roman Greece during this dynamic period. Opening keynote lecture: Prof. Greg Woolf (UCLA) Only Disconnect. Resisting the Deep History of Roman Greece.
Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2023
In the Roman world, lamps with replicated images of sex were in circulation from the late 1st c. ... more In the Roman world, lamps with replicated images of sex were in circulation from the late 1st c. BCE until the end of the 4th c. CE. This paper maps out key regional and chronological trends in the representation and consumption of these objects using data from 11 provincial sites. It demonstrates sustained sensitivity of replicated sexual disc-reliefs to distinctive regional styles of consumption and representation. It also shows that symplegmata disc-reliefs were interacting and changing over time, resulting in innovative imagery that produced new meanings in localized contexts. This is the first comparative systematic study of the styles of consumption and representation of replicated lamp iconography using statistical methods. As such, the paper contributes a novel methodological approach to Roman sexuality research and also advances our understanding of how Roman replicated sexual imagery came about, how it constructed meaning, and how it was consumed by different communities over time.
Journal of Social Archaeology, 2022
This paper explores how replicated erotic art decorating terracotta lamps constructed sexual ideo... more This paper explores how replicated erotic art decorating terracotta lamps constructed sexual ideology in Roman provinces. Lamp imagery, through semantic combination of elements, generated sexual discourse in which certain bodies and actions visually articulated boundaries of ideal and non-ideal sexualities and associated practices. Mouldmade replication helped sexual disc-reliefs communicate consistent ideas about sexuality, aiding cultural cohesion throughout the globalising empire. Lamp portability helped these ideas reach large audiences across vast geographies. Provincial communities, through selection of these objects, however, redefined Roman sexual discourse locally. The greatest difference is discernible between the Latin and Greek locales. In the Latin sites disc-reliefs generate meaning through idealised and dwarf symplegmata, whereas in the Greek East they do so through portrayals of idealised symplegma, mythological rapes, and bestiality. The paper demonstrates the plurality of provincial sexualities, the regional bases for their formation, and their implication in broader Roman colonial discourses.
Papers from the Institute of Archaeology (PIA) , 2014
TRAC 2013. Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference. King’s College London 4–6 April 2013. (eds.) Hannah Platts, John Pearce, Caroline Barron, Jason Lundock, Justin Yoo. 140-158, 2014
This paper examines Roman terracotta mould-made lamps with motifs of human sexual activity from f... more This paper examines Roman terracotta mould-made lamps with motifs of human sexual activity from four Roman provincial sites: Ampurias in Spain, Carthage in Tunisia, Salamis in Cyprus and Vindonissa in Switzerland. Its aim is to highlight key issues in the current approaches to the study of Roman sexuality and to demonstrate the value of systematic and contextualised analysis of sexual imagery on lamps. Using both quantitative and qualitative analyses, this study charts the temporal, regional, stylistic and iconographic patterns of distribution of the images in question. The analysis of the frequency of themes, motifs, and their variations an an examination of stylistic and iconographic treatments of the images reveal that there is a distinct variation in the frequency of distribution of the images throughout time and location. This suggests that there are site-specific affinities for particular visual representations of sex. As the findings presented here are drawn from the first systematic study of sexual imagery on lamps, it is not possible to provide in-depth explanations of the meaning behind all the patterns found. Nonetheless, the findings demonstrate that Roman sexuality is not a monolithic concept that can be applied to the whole of the Roman world and that sexual imagery on lamps can be a useful source of information in the study of regional Roman sexual identity formation.
Drafts by Sanja Vucetic
Beauty has a history as much as bodies do; sexual aesthetics is only one of the many notions of b... more Beauty has a history as much as bodies do; sexual aesthetics is only one of the many notions of beauty next to proportion, sacredness, impossibility, gracefulness and romance (Eco, History of Beauty, 2004) and is often entangled with gender. The concept of beauty has been a topic of interest for some time. Yet, it is only in the recent times that archaeologists began to approach beauty as culturally contingent and socially constructed phenomenon This session seeks contributions that approach beauty as a socially constructed phenomenon, through material remains of the past societies, with no geographical or chronological limits. It welcomes papers including diverse archaeological evidence and employing various theoretical and methodological models on the topics of bodily care (e.g. cosmetics use, toilet and grooming kits), body modification (e.g. tattoos, piercings, scarification), and personal adornment (e.g. jewellery, ornaments, attires). With the aim to move beyond the textual notion of the body as a surface, we particularly encourage papers that employ the theories on the materiality of the body and queer methods, in order to disrupt epistemological and methodological assumptions underpinning much of the archaeological work on beauty and associated bodily regimes. Papers that explore the role of bodily representations and practices in the making of bodies as well as production of beauty in relation to gender, sexuality and other axes of social difference are particularly welcomed.
Talks by Sanja Vucetic
Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens, 2022
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Call for Papers by Sanja Vucetic
Interdisciplinary in its scope, this session takes up questions of gender/sexuality within diverse societies of the ancient Mediterranean world, from Prehistory to Roman times. The goal is to present innovative research that is theoretically informed and contextualised in personal and institutionalised forms of gender and sexuality. The session will explore various social discourses through which gender and sexuality are shaped within specific Mediterranean cultural contexts. It aims to instigate a discussion on the ways gender/sexuality studies can be integrated into broader archaeological debates of ancient Mediterranean colonialism, cultural change, relationships of power, and the construction of the material world.
Please submit abstracts by 16th of February 2015 via the EAA website (http://eaaglasgow2015.com/call-for-papers/).
Conference Talks by Sanja Vucetic
Embedded in the assumption that art acts as an agent of cultural conformity through which social norms are transmitted, the presented study examines lamps from temporal, spatial, stylistic, and iconographic perspectives. Utilising both quantitative and qualitative analysis, the frequency of themes, motifs and their variations is examined, along with identification of possible occurrences of distinctive stylistic and iconographic treatments of the images. The findings of the study present ways through which theoretically informed analysis of the sexual imagery found on lamps addresses the issues in the current Roman sexuality research and emphasises the significance of these often-neglected objects within the wider field of Roman archaeology.
Papers by Sanja Vucetic
The main goal of this conference is to integrate the research on Greece during the Roman Empire and Greece's position within the wider Roman Mediterranean into the current Roman archaeology scholarship while actively engaging with the conceptual agenda of interconnectivity, identities, and social inequalities. The conference aims to explore how new networks of connectivity and mobility impacted Greek communities amidst the economically, socially, and politically changing climate brought by the Roman Empire. Sixteen papers, presented across three days, will bring together different perspectives on the effects of connections, exchange, and innovation in the region in terms of commodity flow, demography, foodways, religious interaction, social dynamics, and cultural transformations. With a strong focus on cutting-edge approaches, the conference seeks to establish an interdisciplinary dialogue, challenge existing paradigms, and stimulate fresh perspectives on the complex interplay between global connections and local innovations in Roman Greece during this dynamic period. Opening keynote lecture: Prof. Greg Woolf (UCLA) Only Disconnect. Resisting the Deep History of Roman Greece.
Drafts by Sanja Vucetic
Talks by Sanja Vucetic
Interdisciplinary in its scope, this session takes up questions of gender/sexuality within diverse societies of the ancient Mediterranean world, from Prehistory to Roman times. The goal is to present innovative research that is theoretically informed and contextualised in personal and institutionalised forms of gender and sexuality. The session will explore various social discourses through which gender and sexuality are shaped within specific Mediterranean cultural contexts. It aims to instigate a discussion on the ways gender/sexuality studies can be integrated into broader archaeological debates of ancient Mediterranean colonialism, cultural change, relationships of power, and the construction of the material world.
Please submit abstracts by 16th of February 2015 via the EAA website (http://eaaglasgow2015.com/call-for-papers/).
Embedded in the assumption that art acts as an agent of cultural conformity through which social norms are transmitted, the presented study examines lamps from temporal, spatial, stylistic, and iconographic perspectives. Utilising both quantitative and qualitative analysis, the frequency of themes, motifs and their variations is examined, along with identification of possible occurrences of distinctive stylistic and iconographic treatments of the images. The findings of the study present ways through which theoretically informed analysis of the sexual imagery found on lamps addresses the issues in the current Roman sexuality research and emphasises the significance of these often-neglected objects within the wider field of Roman archaeology.
The main goal of this conference is to integrate the research on Greece during the Roman Empire and Greece's position within the wider Roman Mediterranean into the current Roman archaeology scholarship while actively engaging with the conceptual agenda of interconnectivity, identities, and social inequalities. The conference aims to explore how new networks of connectivity and mobility impacted Greek communities amidst the economically, socially, and politically changing climate brought by the Roman Empire. Sixteen papers, presented across three days, will bring together different perspectives on the effects of connections, exchange, and innovation in the region in terms of commodity flow, demography, foodways, religious interaction, social dynamics, and cultural transformations. With a strong focus on cutting-edge approaches, the conference seeks to establish an interdisciplinary dialogue, challenge existing paradigms, and stimulate fresh perspectives on the complex interplay between global connections and local innovations in Roman Greece during this dynamic period. Opening keynote lecture: Prof. Greg Woolf (UCLA) Only Disconnect. Resisting the Deep History of Roman Greece.