The final seminar for this year at the Centre for Classical Studies (ANU) is scheduled for Thursday 27 October at 16:00 (4pm) AEDT. It will be delivered by Dr Tamara Lewit from the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne, and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, London.
Title: A monk, a Syrian and a Gaul walk into a vineyard … Community resilience in the late antique Levant
Abstract: The 4th to 6th centuries CE were a time of political, military, and ecological crises: warfare, invasions, the breakdown of a unified Mediterranean-wide Roman state, outbreaks of bubonic plague, and natural disasters including earthquakes and drought. Yet archaeological evidence demonstrates that rural communities in the Levant flourished, with new settlements established, extension of farming into marginal land, flourishing vine and olive cultivation, and wide export of their products. In seeking to explain this vitality, I apply ideas from research on the socio-economic capacities that enable resilience in contemporary communities facing modern crises such as COVID and climate change. I suggest that social capital, economic diversity, church communication and social networks, and capacity for innovation may have been among the factors which enabled the people of the late antique Levant to flourish in adversity.
The seminar will be conducted online only — please join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 913 520 9968
Password: 420113
Australian Early Medieval Association Gazette 