Jonathan Conant, Assistant Professor, Brown University
“Defying Attila: Slavery, Violence, and the Precariousness of Social Obligations in the Late Antique Mediterranean”
Monday, November 12, 2012, 5pm
Carpenter B21 (followed by a reception in the Quita Woodward Room)

In 443, Romans living along the empire’s Danube frontier defied the imperial administration and refused to accede to Attila the Hun’s demand that they surrender fellow citizens into captivity as the price of peace. At the same time, bishops throughout the Mediterranean—including Augustine of Hippo—found themselves confronted with the problem of free (or freed) Roman citizens being captured by slave traders and sold into bondage to their fellow Romans within the territory of the late Roman state. In light of the susceptibility of Roman populations to violent enslavement in late antiquity, this paper will explore fourth- and fifth-century conceptions of what members of a society owed one another, why, and how far those obligations extended.

This talk is held in connection with the Graduate Group seminar “Carthage: The View from Elsewhere”, and is sponsored by the Graduate Group in Archaeology, Classics, and History of Art.

The Center for Visual Culture and the Department of the Growth and Structure of Cities at Bryn Mawr College and the Art Department at Swarthmore College are offering a special seminar on 19th-century Paris and have invited a scholar from Paris to address the subject of modern urban planning.

“La Comédie Urbaine” : Paris as an urban form

What makes Paris modern?  What went into the planning and shaping of Paris?  What is particular to its form and how did it come to be a model for urban planning?  How is its form studied?

Michaël Darin, Professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture of Strasbourg, France, has taught and published widely in the field of architectural history and urbanism, with recent publications including studies on Paris’ morphology, “La Comédie Urbaine” (2009) and “Pathworks parisiens, petites leçons d’urbanisme ordinaire” (2012), and various studies on Tel-Aviv, La Roche-sur-Yon and Pontivy, as well as articles concerning the history of the boulevard and topics in 20th-century architecture.

If interested in Paris, urban studies and/or architecture, you are encouraged to participate.  The event will be in English.

11:00  Friday, Nov. 2, 2012
Ely Room, Wyndham
Bryn Mawr College

Lunch will follow the seminar.

Bryn Mawr students, please RSVP to Jeffrey Cohen, jcohen@brynmawr.edu
All other students, please RSVP to Min Kyung Lee, mlee5@swarthmore.edu