ANCIENT LIBRARIES CONFERENCE
SCHOOL OF CLASSICS, UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS
9-11 SEPTEMBER 2008
Libraries operate as the core foundation of research and study in the modern
Western world. Historically, they have enabled the preservation and
transmission of knowledge from antiquity to the Middle Ages, to the
contemporary era. Yet in the diachronic history of the library, we still lack
fundamental facts about its institutional role, organisation and mode of
operation in the ancient world. This is especially acute as both archaeological
research and the study of ancient literary texts have enabled significant
advancement to our knowledge and understanding of ancient written culture and
its various loci of production and dissemination.
The conference aims to re-open discussion of the role, function and users of
ancient libraries. We are keen to explore the shifting conditions under which
the library operated as a physical and institutional entity, but also as
intellectual and symbolic space over the long span of antiquity. In addition,
we wish to investigate a variety of scholarly practices and social and
intellectual networks that developed within the domain of the ancient library.
We thus hope to illuminate the relationship between the library and the broader
culture of reading, writing and intellectual exchange in antiquity.
Conference organisers:
Dr Jason König (jpk3@st-andrews.ac.uk)
Dr Katerina Oikonomopoulou (ao40@st-andrews.ac.uk)
Professor Greg Woolf (gdw2@st-andrews.ac.uk)
The conference is part of the activities of the Leverhulme-funded ‘Science and
Empire in the Roman World’ project
(http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/classics/science-and-empire/). It will bring
together literary scholars, historians and archaeologists of all periods of
Graeco-Roman antiquity specialising in the above fields. Confirmed speakers
include: Ewen Bowie, Annette Harder, George Houston, Christian Jacob, William
Johnson, Richard Neudecker.
We invite papers on the following broad themes:
• The library as both material and intellectual archive: its history,
significance and development
• Libraries and the reading culture of antiquity
• Patterns of source usage, cross-referencing and annotating in antiquity
• The institutional function of ancient libraries, and their role in ancient
intellectual life
• Libraries and patronage, or benefaction
• Libraries and acquisitiveness, material or intellectual
• The organisation and operation of ancient libraries
• The topography of the ancient library: libraries and civic space
• Public and private libraries in the ancient world
Scholars, including postgraduate students, are asked to send 300-word abstracts
to Katerina Oikonomopoulou (ao40 AT st-andrews.ac.uk) by the 30th of April 2008.
SCHOOL OF CLASSICS, UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS
9-11 SEPTEMBER 2008
Libraries operate as the core foundation of research and study in the modern
Western world. Historically, they have enabled the preservation and
transmission of knowledge from antiquity to the Middle Ages, to the
contemporary era. Yet in the diachronic history of the library, we still lack
fundamental facts about its institutional role, organisation and mode of
operation in the ancient world. This is especially acute as both archaeological
research and the study of ancient literary texts have enabled significant
advancement to our knowledge and understanding of ancient written culture and
its various loci of production and dissemination.
The conference aims to re-open discussion of the role, function and users of
ancient libraries. We are keen to explore the shifting conditions under which
the library operated as a physical and institutional entity, but also as
intellectual and symbolic space over the long span of antiquity. In addition,
we wish to investigate a variety of scholarly practices and social and
intellectual networks that developed within the domain of the ancient library.
We thus hope to illuminate the relationship between the library and the broader
culture of reading, writing and intellectual exchange in antiquity.
Conference organisers:
Dr Jason König (jpk3@st-andrews.ac.uk)
Dr Katerina Oikonomopoulou (ao40@st-andrews.ac.uk)
Professor Greg Woolf (gdw2@st-andrews.ac.uk)
The conference is part of the activities of the Leverhulme-funded ‘Science and
Empire in the Roman World’ project
(http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/classics/science-and-empire/). It will bring
together literary scholars, historians and archaeologists of all periods of
Graeco-Roman antiquity specialising in the above fields. Confirmed speakers
include: Ewen Bowie, Annette Harder, George Houston, Christian Jacob, William
Johnson, Richard Neudecker.
We invite papers on the following broad themes:
• The library as both material and intellectual archive: its history,
significance and development
• Libraries and the reading culture of antiquity
• Patterns of source usage, cross-referencing and annotating in antiquity
• The institutional function of ancient libraries, and their role in ancient
intellectual life
• Libraries and patronage, or benefaction
• Libraries and acquisitiveness, material or intellectual
• The organisation and operation of ancient libraries
• The topography of the ancient library: libraries and civic space
• Public and private libraries in the ancient world
Scholars, including postgraduate students, are asked to send 300-word abstracts
to Katerina Oikonomopoulou (ao40 AT st-andrews.ac.uk) by the 30th of April 2008.