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Penn Faculty
Research Fellows,
Cynthia Damon, Professor of Classical Studies
Plinian Layers
Pliny’s Natural History has been likened to its contemporary monument in stone, the Colosseum: chipped and worn, but substantially extant from the 1st century of the common era to the present. My research project is an inquiry into the way this Colosseum of letters connects eras of intellectual history. In “Plinian layers” I will explore how adaptations of Pliny’s encyclopedia made between the 1st century and the 21st can be rendered present in a single place. That is, to discover how one can connect them in a scholarly edition offering something like a core sample through history. Given the work’s variety of content and breadth of influence this project will, I hope, provide numerous possibilities for connections across disciplines.
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Jeffrey E. Green, Asst Professor of Political Science
Reconnecting to the People: Beyond the Metaphorics of the People’s Voice
A central promise of democracy historically has been that the ordinary citizen would be connected to a larger, collective entity—the People. In addition to considering the citizen’s individual voice, the collective voice would be formed and empowered. An ordinary citizen, even when lacking an opinion or initially disagreeing with the collective view, could find satisfaction that the collective view belonged to the People and, so, belonged to him/herself too. But this notion of a popular voice is no longer credible. As states have become highly diverse ethnically and religiously, the popular voice seems both inaccurate and dangerous. At the same time, unquestionably, ‘the People’ remains a vital notion, uniquely capable of addressing—and connecting—everyday citizens in the condition of their everydayness. Building on recent trends in democratic theory, I hope to re-conceive the People as something other than voice—and, in so doing, rethink the grounds on which democratic citizens, specifically ordinary citizens without office or special claims to power, might understand themselves to be connected.
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Cam Grey, Asst Professor of Classical Studies
Social Networks Within and Between Rural Communities in the Late Roman World
To what extent does our modern preoccupation with interconnection shape our analysis of social networks in ancient contexts? And what methodological problems attend the application of tools developed in an early twenty first century context to the communities of antiquity? I engage with these questions by focusing particular attention upon the networks of relationships that, we may assume, existed between the inhabitants of the countrysides of the Mediterranean world in Late Antiquity (c. 280 CE – c. 480 CE). The aims of this project are, first, to explore the social structures of rural communities in the late Roman world; and second, to reflect upon the validity of a methodology that explicitly draws upon and exploits present concerns and problems in its approach to ancient societies.
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Annette Yoshiko Reed, Asst Professor of Religious Studies
Towards a History of “Jewish-Christianity”: Judaism, the Apostolic Past, and the
Pseudo-Clementines
This project investigates the intersections between Judaism and Christianity through a focus on the Pseudo-Clementines, the most famous first-hand sources for so-called “Jewish-Christianity.” First, I examine these texts in their late antique Syrian cultural contexts. I situate their distinctive perspectives on the Jewish/apostolic past among attempts by Christian and “pagan” Syrians to articulate trans-imperial identities that spoke to their experiences on the shifting eastern frontier of the Roman Empire and at the crossing of multiple long-distance trade routes. Then, I turn to their early modern reception, considering how the Pseudo-Clementines served as a nexus for debates about the nature of the connections between the (Jewish/apostolic) past and the (Christian) present – debates sparked and intensified, as in Late Antiquity, by new economic and political links between Eurasian cultures.
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Heather J. Sharkey, Assoc Professor, Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations
Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Modern Middle East: Cultures in Contact or Conflict?
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in the region stretching from Morocco to Iran, Muslims, Christians, and Jews inhabited shared worlds. They held in common daily experiences, attitudes, and languages, and rubbed shoulders in villages, city neighborhoods, and apartment buildings. Because Muslims, Christians, and Jews shared so much of everyday existence, one can and should study them together, even while recognizing how fluctuating social tensions and power differentials strained their mutual relations. This research into the history of inter-communal relations considers the overlapping and ever-evolving varieties of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish cultures in the modern Middle East. By identifying a mostly stable, mostly peaceful, and culturally pluralistic past, its reading of history offers hope for shared futures, particularly in Western countries where Muslim communities are growing today.
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Rupa Viswanath, Asst Professor of South Asia Studies
The Historical Foundations of Indian Secularism: the Administration of “Untouchables” in Colonial Madras
Recent debate on Indian secularism treats its alleged Western provenance as posing a problem: between Indian society and secularism, there is a gap that must be closed either by jettisoning secularism or by determining how it can be accommodated to fit Indian society. The assumption on both sides is thus that secularism and Indian society are entirely distinct, and that the concepts through which secularism operates in India today were forged elsewhere. I intervene in this debate by taking up the theme of connections; where the current impasse assumes difference, I uncover the ways in which key categories of secular governance, such as “religion”, were not first imported and only subsequently “applied” in Indian contexts, but decisively shaped in India, in the conflicts among diverse historical actors over the reform of “untouchables,” bonded laborers of the lowest castes. The problem that confronts Indian secularism today is not, I argue, its Western provenance, but the fact that it silently encodes high caste prerogatives.
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