Colloquium, Department of Classical Studies
Thursday, Oct 08, 2020, 4:30 pm
Please join us for our virtual colloquium on Thursday, October, 8, 2020 at 4:30 when Dr. Elena Isayev, Professor of Ancient History and Place at the University of Exeter, UK, will present her paper:
Ancient Wandering and Permanent Temporariness
Abstract: To move towards an understanding of displacement from within, and the forms of its overcoming, the paper will bring into dialogue the ancient experience of wandering and the 21st century condition of permanent temporariness. It will explore whether these are the same or different phenomena. And whether the latter is a uniquely modern experience. In particular, it is interested in the turning points that lead to defiance of the condition and its regime. It will trace modes of existence that subvert the liminal state and allow for possibilities of living beyond the present moment, through splintered returns and futures. Such actions, it will be argued, allow for the repositioning of the self in relation to the world, and thus the exposition of cracks within the status quo. The exploration will engage current responses to de-placement by those who have experience of the condition firsthand, especially of refugee camps in Europe and the Middle East, with ancient discourses of the outcast, as experienced by Medea, Xenophon and such philosophers as Diogenes the Cynic. In so doing, it seeks to expose the way seemingly exceptional forms of politics and existence, instead, reveal themselves as society’s systemic edge.
Elena Isayev is a historian and archaeologist focusing on migration, hospitality and displacement, which she has written about for the Red Cross, and in her monograph Migration Mobility and Place in Ancient Italy (Cambridge 2017), as well as in editing Displacement and the Humanities, with Evan Jewell. She has worked with colleagues in Palestine, of Campus in Camps and Decolonising Architecture, to understand and move beyond the cracks in the nation-state regime, exposing the role of culture and heritage. She is a member of UNDRR/ICCROM expert panel on the role of traditional knowledge systems in disaster risk reduction. Currently leading the team of Imagining Futures through Un/Archived Pasts (an AHRC, GCRF Network+), she is also Professor of Ancient History and Place at the University of Exeter, UK.
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