Seminars and Colloquia are open to faculty and (where noted) graduate students of The Catholic University of America and to invited guests.
Colloquia: The Center's colloquia are not regularly scheduled, but take the form of full-day or half-day workshops on a specific topic (see past examples below).
Seminars: The Center's seminars are normally held in 207 McMahon Hall. For fuller details and copies of texts and other data to be discussed, contact Paul Cooper, 202 319 5795. For catering purposes, it is helpful for us to know how many are likely to attend: so, a reply to that effect is appreciated.
These seminars follow four patterns:
1. The "Early Christian Seminars," held on occasional Thursday evenings, provide an opportunity for graduate students to present their current work, introduce selected texts and topics, and discuss methods and difficulties. The meetings are followed by a catered buffet.
2. The "Lunchtime Seminars," held from 12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m., are normally presided over either by a Guest Lecturer (who will have delivered a public lecture on a previous evening) or by a Visiting Scholar within the Center. The meetings include a catered buffet lunch.
3. Not always seminars in a strict sense, meetings "In medias res: Conversations at the Center" are held at advertised times and places once a month when possible. Their purpose is to allow members of faculty, particularly those working in or closely concerned with the field of early Christian thought and development, either to relax together in an informal setting or to discuss current projects and associated matters that may arise. A light buffet is served.
4. The "First Millennium Network" meetings are not restricted to the Center, but represent a range of gatherings bringing together faculty and graduate students from our own university and from others in the Washington area, studying the context, development, and interaction of different religious cultures in Antiquity, Early Islam, Byzantium, and the Early Middle Ages. The Network has its own website (firstmillenniumnetwork.org) and further information can be obtained from the CUA representative on the Network's Steering Committee, Associate Professor Jennifer Davis in our Department of History.
Previous Colloquia
Classical and Christian Education 2018.
This week-long seminar was the result of a collaboration between the Catholic University of America and the Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. Graduate students and faculty from both institutions presented papers and engaged in informal discussion on continuities and changes in educational ideas and practicies in the transition from classical to Christian antiquity.
Colloquium on Origen's Homilies on the Psalms 2017.
Robin Darling Young moderated this two-day discussion of Origen's recently discovered homilies on the Psalms. Lorenzo Perrone (Bologna) gave the keynote lecture, and papers were delivered by Alex Poulos (CUA), Miriam DeCock (McMaster), Mark Randall James (Fordham/Hunter College), Margaret Mitchell (Chicago), and Joseph Wilson Trigg (Independent Scholar).
Material Culture Workshop 2015.
Darlene L. Brooks-Hedstrom (Wittenberg University), Danielle Joyner, (Dumbarton Oaks), Susan T. Stevens, (Randolph College), and Ann Marie Yasin (University of Southern California) joined CUA faculty and graduate students in a two-day discussion of material culture in early Christianity, late antiquity, and the early middle ages.
Special Study Day 2011: "Late Antiquity and its Renaissance Legacies."
Dr Ellen Muehlberger (University of Michigan) and Dr Meredith Gill (University of Maryland, College Park) were joined by our own Caroline Sherman (Department of History) and Philip Rousseau (Mellon Distinguished Professor) in a series of papers and discussions on the Renaissance reception of ancient ascetics, and early modern theologies of light.
Joint Colloquium with Dumbarton Oaks 2010
Byzantine Fellows and Junior Fellows specializing in the late antique field, together with Margaret Mullett (DO Director of Byzantine Studies), joined our own faculty and graduate students in a discussion of current trends in the field and of their place in relation to those trends. Guests attending were Scott Johnson, Noel Lenski, Meaghan McEvoy, Columba Stewart, Martin Wallraff, Sarah Insley, and Jennifer Westerfeld.
Antioch Day 2009
This one-day colloquium brought together seven scholars interested in late antique Antioch: Raffaella Cribiore, Blake Leyerle, Jaclyn Maxwell, Wendy Mayer, Isabella Sandwell, Christina Shepardson, and Robin Darling Young.
Papyri and Ostraka Workshop 2008
The Center joined the University Library and the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures (the major sponsors) in hosting a workshop on the conservation, cataloguing, and imaging of papyri and ostraka in the ICOR Library. Dr Monica Blanchard, curator, and Dr Chrysi Kotsifou, visiting associate curator (and Research Fellow in the Center), were joined by Dr Rodney Ast, project coordinator of APIS (Advanced Papyrological Information System), Dr Julia Lougovaya of the Classics Department at Columbia University, and invited colleagues and students.
Jerome Day 2006
Six graduate students (Tim Kearns, Jared Ortiz, Elizabeth-Jane Pavlick, Dana Robinson Lampe, Robert Simkins, and Stuart Squires), who had worked on Jerome as a writer during the fall semester with Dr Catherine Chin (School of Theology and Religious Studies), delivered papers as part of their course examination. Dr Catherine Conybeare (Bryn Mawr) commented at intervals during the day.
Dorushe 2006
The Dorushe Graduate Student Association (affiliated to Beth Mardutho) held its first annual conference at CUA, a workshop on "Syriac Pedagogy." Guest of honor was Professor Susan Ashbrook Harvey (Brown University). Also attending were Dr Joel Walker (University of Washington, Seattle) and Dr George Kiraz (Gorgias Press). Papers were delivered by Scott Girdner (Boston University), Linda Wheatley Irving (University of Chicago), Young Kim (University of Michigan), Daniel King (University of Cardiff), Jonathan Loopstra (CUA), David Michelson (Princeton University), Ophir Münz-Manor (Hebrew University, Jerusalem), and Michael Penn (Mount Holyoke).
Romanos Colloquium 2005
A one-day colloquium on the theme "The Hymns of Romanos the Melodist: A Bridge between Greek and Syriac Poetry in Late Antiquity," presented jointly with Dumbarton Oaks. Speakers included Averil Cameron (Oxford University), Mary Cunningham (University of Birmingham), Johannes Koder (Institut für Byzantinistik und Neo-gräzistik, Vienna), Derek Krueger (University of North Carolina, Greensboro), Ephrem Lash (University of Manchester), Riccardo Maisano (Università degli studi di Napoli, "L'Orientale"), Manolis Papoutsakis (Princeton University), and Leena Mari Peltomaa (University of Helsinki).
Leadership and Authority in Late Antiquity 2005
Participants at this one-day colloquium introduced primary texts and led a discussion on the ways in which they demonstrated the definition and exercise of leadership. Members of our own faculty were joined by Lewis Ayres (Emory University), Dan Caner (University of Connecticut, Storrs), Catherine Conybeare (Bryn Mawr), Ken Holum (University of Maryland, College Park),, Wendy Mayer (Australian Catholic University), and Claudia Rapp (University of California, Los Angeles).
Gibbon Day 2004
A one-day symposium on the work of Edward Gibbon. Guest speakers were Clifford Ando (University of Southern California), Patricia Craddock (University of Florida), and John Pocock (Johns Hopkins University).
Conferences
Conference 2012
A conference was held at The Catholic University of America, Thursday, May 31 - Sunday, June 3, 2012 on the theme "The Christian Moses." The conference has recently appeared in book form as The Christian Moses: From Philo to the Qur'an, edited by Philip Rousseau and Janet Timbie (Washington, DC: Cathollic Univ. of America Press, 2019).
Conference 2005
The theme of the conference was "Early Christian Studies and the Academic Disciplines." Speakers included Pauline Allen (Australian Catholic University), Olof Brandt (Swedish Institute for Classical Studies, Rome), Elizabeth Clark (Duke University), Ruth Clements (Library of Congress), Sarah Coakley (Harvard Divinity School), Geoffrey Dunn (Australian Catholic University), Jennifer Ebbeler (University of Texas, Austin), James Francis (University of Kentucky), James Kelhoffer (Saint Louis University), Christopher Kelly (University of Cambridge), John Peter Kenney (St Michael's College, Vermont), Francis Moloney (CUA), Karla Pollmann (University of St Andrews), Linda Safran (University of Toronto), Raymond Van Dam (University of Michigan), and Mark Vessey (University of British Columbia).
Conference 2002
The proceedings of the conference were published in book form: The Early Christian Book, edited by William E. Klingshirn and Linda Safran (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007).