International Digital Workshop & Seminar: Muros et Moenia

It is with great pleasure that we announce our postponed international workshop “Muros et Moenia: City Walls, Urban Boundaries, and the Articulation of the City in the First Millennium CE,” which will now be held on a digital platform on 29-30 October, 2020. ​

As part of the international workshop, a graduate seminar will  be held on a digital platform on 23 October, 2020 (15:00-17:00 CET). The seminar will be hosted by Hendrik Dey (Hunter College, NY).

International Digital Workshop Muros et Moenia, 29-30 October:

In the ancient, late antique, and the early medieval worlds, city walls both projected strength and indicated insecurity. These impressive and prominent constructions dominated the urban landscape and oriented the movement of citizens. Likewise, these enclosures sought to delineate those who did and did not belong, physically marking the inclusion of its citizens as well as signifying the exclusion of whoever and whatever threatened to harm the physical, symbolic, and ritual integrity of the city. City walls were visible from afar, drawing visitors in and advertising the city’s status from a distance. At the same time, the wall’s overlapping layers of legal, ritual, and symbolic significance structured narrative and normative texts across these epochs.

During the workshop, various speakers will highlight ancient and medieval walls from different perspectives, click here for the full Muros et Moenia Workshop Programme.

Please note that you must register for the workshop before 16 October with your name and affiliation (or as an independent scholar) through the email address murosetmoenia@gmail.com.

Graduate Seminar (1 ECTS), 23 October 2020

Preceding the workshop, Prof. Hendrik Dey, Dr. Saskia Stevens, and Dr. Megan Welton will conduct a three-hour seminar on the morning of the first day of Muros et Moenia. Interested graduate students will be introduced to a wide range of surviving ancient and medieval archaeological and textual sources, as well as the central theoretical and methodological issues scholars have formulated to analyse ancient and medieval walls. At its core, this seminar will focus on the material and symbolic aspects of inclusion and exclusion that these walls represented. Students will be encouraged to discuss and debate the political, religious, and literary representations of these material structures, as symbols and concrete manifestations of the creation and delineation of the civic body. As part of the curriculum of the Onderzoekschool Mediëvistiek and OIKOS, this discussion will then culminate in a short written reflection on the seminar of ca. 1000 words. Further details and required reading materials will be provided after the registration deadline. Registration should be done by 9 October 2020 with your name and affiliation through the email address murosetmoenia@gmail.com.

For further enquiries and registration, please contact: murosetmoenia@gmail.com

Muros et Moenia is generously supported by the NWO-VICI Project “Citizenship Discourses in the Early Middle Ages, 400-1100,” the Utrecht Centre for Medieval Studies (UCMS), Ancient History and Classical Civilisation at Utrecht University, and OIKOS – the Dutch National Research School in Classics.