The Einstein Visiting Fellow project “(Re-)Negotiating Social Cohesion – Religion and Community in Antiquity (800 BCE–400 CE)” explores the ambivalent role of religion in social cohesion in Graeco-Roman antiquity. The project employs discursive approaches to conduct a detailed examination of interactions between structural conditions and actors. Its first workshop (30 September to 2 October 2026) is dedicated to the significance of religion for social cohesion in ancient communities by means of a systematic and comparative analysis. You will find the programme included below.
For attendance (in-person or Zoom), please contact to [email protected].
For more information on the workshop and the project, visit https://www.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/de/bereiche-und-lehrstuehle/alte-geschichte/forschungsprojekte/re-negotiating-social-cohesion.
Workshop “(Re-)Negotiating Social Cohesion in Antiquity: Systematic Aspects”
Lise-Meitner-Saal, BBAW, Unter den Linden 8, Berlin
30 September
16:30 Registration
17:00 Claudia Tiersch (Berlin) and Beate Dignas (Oxford): Welcome and introduction
17:15 Keynote lecture: Clifford Ando (Chicago): Religion, citizenship, and the failure to cohere
18:45 Reception
20:00 Dinner
1 October
09:30 Sitta von Reden (Freiburg): Negotiating social cohesion through coinage: local and imperial cult communities in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt
10:15 Rogier van der Heijden (Berlin): Between ὑπὲρ τῆς βασιλέως and οὐχ ὁσίην: Societal structures of debate and religious interaction in Ptolemaic Alexandria
11:00 Coffee
11:30 Angela Ganter (Regensburg): Appropriation, alienation and religious group identities: The cult of Magna Mater in Rome
12:15 Jonas Ortel (Berlin): Stability in Chaos? Pax in late Republican debates on the ideal cohesive society
13:00 Lunch
14:30 Barbara Kowalzig (New York): Wealth, health, and soteria: Hellenistic Religion between polytheism and populism
15:15 Beate Dignas (Oxford): Exploring community and religion in the Hellenistic polis: The lens of synoikismos
16:00 Coffee
16:30 Mischa Meier (Tübingen): Jerusalem unter Herakleios (610–641): Juden, Christen, Sasaniden, Moslems und das Ende der Welt
17:15 Claudia Tiersch (Berlin): Cives christiani – cives politici? Religion and social cohesion in Late Roman cities
19:30 Conference dinner
2 October
09:30 Collective discussion I
11:00 Coffee
11:15 Collective discussion II