About the Center for Mediterranean Civilization

Summer Workshops



"Mediterranean Paradigms" and the Study of Antiquity
An International Workshop
The Center for Mediterranean Civilizations
Tel Aviv University
May 30-31, 2001


The "Mediterranean" has been an influential concept in both historical studies and in disciplinary classifications, such as "the ancient Mediterranean." Prominent historians, such as Fernand Braudel, Henri Pirenne and Shlomo Dov Goitein, have created some of the conceptual groundwork that is continuously being re-assessed -- most recently in Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell The Corrupting Sea (Oxford, 2000).
The Workshop "Mediterranean Paradigms and the Study of Antiquity" will confront the concept of the Mediterranean by posing the same question to a group of prominent ancient historians: "How useful is the concept of the 'Mediterranean' to the study of Antiquity"? Among those who will address it at the workshop will be: Carmine Ampolo of the Scuola Normale Superiore Di Pisa; Lin Foxhall of the University of Leicester; Irad Malkin of Tel Aviv University; Ian Morris of Stanford University; Nicholas Purcell of St. John's College, Oxford; Brent Shaw of the University of Pennsylvania; and Greg Woolf of the University of St. Andrews.
The workshop will take place at Tel Aviv University, 30-31 May 2001 under the auspices of The Center for Mediterranean Civilizations and its Director, Professor Irad Malkin. Those who wish to stay on, may take into account that the Israeli Society for the Promotion of Classical Studies will hold its annual, international meeting on June 4-5, 2001 at Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan (very near to Tel Aviv). More information about this meeting can be found at:
http://research.haifa.ac.il/~mluz/ispcs/kenesmenu.html.


Program
Wednesday, May 30, 2001
9:30-10:00 Registration and Opening
10:00-11:30 Irad Malkin,
The Concept of "Network" and the Greek City States
in the Mediterranean and Black Sea
11:30-11:45 Coffee break
11:45-13:15 Carmine Ampolo,
The Concept of "Region" in Archaic Greek
History: a Comparative approach
13:15-15:00 Lunch Break
15:00-16:30 Lin Foxhall,
Mediterranean Landscapes and Identities
16:30-16:45 Coffee Break
16:45-18:15 Ian Morris, Greek Exceptionalism
Thursday May 31, 2001
9:00-10:15 Nicholas Purcell,
The Boundless Sea of Unlikeness
10:15-11:45 Brent Shaw,
A Peculiar Island: the Maghrib and the Mediterranean
11:45-12:15 Coffee, tea, sandwiches
12:15-13:45 Greg Woolf,
The Mediterranean, a Sea of Faith?
14:00 Trip to Caesaria Maritima and Atlit (overview) with Ehud Galili,
Head of Marine Archeology Section,
the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Mr. Galili will be speaking to us on:
The Emergence of the Mediterranean Fishing Village
in the Prehistoric Levant.
Speakers:

Carmine Ampolo, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Italy

Lin Foxhall, University of Leicester, UK

Irad Malkin, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Ian Morris, Stanford University, USA

Nicholas Purcell, St. John College, Oxford, UK

Brent Shaw, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Greg Woolf, University of St. Andrews, UK

Ehud Galili, Head of Marine Archeology Section,
the Israel Antiquities Authority, Israel (special presentation)


 

Participants from abroad:

Bridget Algee, Mount Allison University, Canada

Robert Bartlet, University of St. Andrews, UK

Emma Blake, UCLA, USA

G.E.E. de Breucker, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Sandra Gambetti, University of California, USA

Philippe Guillaume, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Marta Guzowska, Warsaw University, Poland

Athena Hadji, University of California, USA

Trinity Jackman, Stanford University, USA

Thomas Mauro, The American School in Switzerland

Peter Meineck, New York University, USA

Paul L. Pelosi, University of Glasgow, Scotland


Fellowships

There will be at least ten fellowships for graduate students and post-doctoral candidates. Each fellowship will pay $900 for people coming from Europe and $1250 for those coming from the American continent or a comparable distance. To apply, please send a letter describing your main field of interest, and a curriculum vitae. Please have one letter of recommendation sent directly to Professor Irad Malkin. Both CV and the letter may be sent via e-mail or mailed to:
Prof. Irad Malkin, The Center for Mediterranean Civilizations
Tel Aviv University, 69978 Tel Aviv, Israel.
Fax: 972-3-6405076; Tel: 972-3-6405187


Residence: Fully furnished apartments in central Tel Aviv will be available for a cost of $70 a night (minimum residency: six nights). Two persons may share an apartment. For those interested in a shorter stay, we can help with arrangements for hotel accommodation. Experience from two previous workshops has been very satisfactory. Israel is a small country and Tel Aviv is a very good base for day-trips. Night life in Tel Aviv is happily Mediterranean.



Previous workshops

Mediating Literatures: Mediterranean Literatures in the 20th Century
Director: Dr. N. Calderon
The Center for Mediterranean Civilizations
Tel Aviv University
July 9-21, 2000

The aim of the Workshop has been a comparative investigation, with particular attention to the historical, political and socio-cultural circumstances of survival of those literatures. It has focused on the dimension of interaction and interplay between "minority" and "majority" productions.

In engaging the disciplines of comparative literature, poetics, socio-linguistics and trans-national studies, this workshop addressed current scholarly concerns in the Mediterranean region. It was particularly relevant to advanced graduate studies and post-doctoral research.

The workshop discussed both general and theoretical issues, drawing on a wide spectrum of literary production around the Mediterranean and, more specifically concentrated on the following literatures:
  • West Mediterranean: Sardinian literature
  • African Mediterranean: Literature in Arabic, Berber and French in North Africa and the Near East.
  • Central Mediterranean and the Balkans: Croatian literature
  • East Mediterranean: Ladino; Sepharadic literature in Hebrew

The workshop concentrated on the following:
    1. The socio-cultural context: a comparative framework.
    2. The creation of "mediating space" for alternative literatures and their relations
      with the main literary language.
    1. An analysis of the transmission, diffusion, vitality and mediation among
      "minority literatures" with particular attention to dissemination and audience reception.
    1. Analysis of texts of contemporary authors.
    2. The study and composition of key Mediterranean literary creations.
    3. Examination of the status of "minority" literatures and their relations to the
      literary production in the "majority" languages.
    4. The cultural and political backgrounds.
    5. The "Mediterranean Idea": attitudes to the representation of reality.
    6. Critical presentations by major Mediterranean authors.

Program

The workshop was planned for two weeks and consisted of two main parts:

Part 1: Mediterranean Mediations: "da Oriente a Occidente in ogni punto
        e'divisione" (Leonardo Da Vinci)
A general examination of the concept of "Mediterranean" with particular attention to the areas where "minority" literatures are produced.

Part 2: Mediating Literatures
Analysis of specific literatures, with the participation of prominent authors.

List of Participants
Among the scholars and authors leading the workshop:
Literatures, politics and cultural-planning: Prof. Sam Kaplan (Ben Gurion University)
Sepharadic literature in Hebrew: Aliza Ginio (Tel Aviv University)
Sardinian Literature: Prof. Mauro Pala (Cagliari University)
Hebrew literature: Dr. Nissim Calderon (Tel Aviv University)
Francophone literature: Prof. David Mendelson (Tel Aviv University)
Ladino literature: Tamar Alexander (Ben Gurion University)
Arabic Literature: Sasson Somech (Tel Aviv University)
Kurdish Literature: Mustafa Mirzeler (Knox College)

Authors invited to participate:
A.B. Yehoshoua
Nai'm Arayde
Albert Memmi
Amine Ma'alouf
Ali Salem




Yehoshoua A.B.
Some Personal Impressions of the participants:

Rita Maria Kilroy, University of Venice, Italy
I myself as an Irish person rarely have the chance to be exposed to Israeli and Mculture in such light. I thank you all for this as I have truly returned home with a list as long as my arm of books I wish to read.

Shoshi Vaksman, University of Tel Aviv, Israel
I am not the only one who felt, after it was finished, inspiration to go further on in getting aquatinted with cultures and literatures that live next door but yet have such remote or even absent existence in my mind. I must say I hope this kind of discussions will contribute and promote in the long run a change in atmosphere, which is so crucial to the region.

Valentina Serra, University of Cagliari, Italy
I had the chance to get in touch with cultures, problems, feelings and emotions not familiar to me because of my education focused on German and English literature. Thanks to the brilliant organization of the meetings, perfectly balanced between cultural, historical and literal explanations (which in certain cases opened me a new world) and interesting free debates, closer to informal and spontaneous discussions among friends rather than to academic ones.

Bela Tsipuria, Teacher, Tbilisi, Georgia
The idea of pluralism was the most important point on summer workshop on mediating studies. The workshop really represented the pluralism of cultures and ideas; and professor Calderon suggested we could find the pluralism as the basic point of Mediterraneanism.

Marjolijn van de Geer, Essay International, Felix Meritis Foundation, the Netherlands
Personally this workshop gave me a suitcase full of issues to reflect my own way of thinking. Who am I, in the first place? Were do I stand? Where can I meet you? Where will I take you to meet me?

Miha Mazzini, Slovenia
I've discovered here new books to read, new ideas to discuss and the most important of all, I've met people I enjoy talking to. The people who has enriched me with their culture, languages and plurality. I think that what the whole Mediterranean idea is about. Thank you very much for offering me this opportunity.

Fatma Bassiouni, American University in Cairo
The exchange of ideas and debate in these workshops will pave the road to resurrecting the shared Mediterranean culture and history of our region and will also give impetuous to increased regional participation in the coming years.

Yucell Demirer, Turkey and Ohio State University
In this theoretically well thought and practically well organized workshop I had a chance to listen to intellectually stimulating presentations and participated in fruitful discussions on various specific cases.

Natascia Danieli, University of Cagliari, Italy
I consider discussions with authors interesting meetings where we can hear poems or parts of their works really from their mouths. This is unconventional but fundamental in order to appreciate their personal view of the own works.

Prof. Mauro Pala, University of Cagliari, Italy
To articulate such a varied and complex reality revolving around Hebrew literature was not an easy task and all lecturers I heard were remarkable in their capacity to provide the audience (not specialists included) with all data necessary to grasp the subtleties of a certain literary context and related discourse.
I also appreciated the political agenda to which the workshop. A mutual comprehension based on the recognition of a common heritage has become a historical necessity and all intellectuals should contribute to the idea of supplementary identity enriching and overlapping the one that corresponds to a given citizenship.
The relaxed and friendly atmosphere in which the workshop took place was a foretaste of what the Mediterranean experience could be.



The Summer Workshop on the Origins of the Alphabet
The Center for Mediterranean Civilizations
Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities
Tel Aviv University, Israel
11th-22nd July 1999



The Origins of the Alphabet.
The workshop concentrates on the following:
  1. The 'invention' of the alphabet and the epigraphic situation in the Eastern Mediterranean at the close of the second millennium B.C.E. and the beginning of the first.
  2. The problem of the transmission of the West Semitic script to ancient Greece.
While naturally concentrating on Semitic and Greek alphabetic writing, the programme of the workshop will also include introductory lectures on cuneiform writing, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Hieroglyphic Luwian, and Aegean scripts. Excursions to archaeological sites of related interest are also planned.

Among the scholars who lead the workshops are: Emmett L. Bennett, author of The Pylos Tablets (1951 and 1955); Aaron Demsky (Bar Ilan University), a leading specialist in Hebrew and Semitic Epigraphy; Orly Goldwasser (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), author of From Icon to Metaphor (1995); Alan Johnston (University College London), co-editor, since 1990, of L.H. Jeffery: The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece; Barry Powell (University of Wisconsin-Madison), author of Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet (1991); Itamar Singer (Tel Aviv University), author of The Hittite Ki. Lam Festival, 2 Vols. (1983, 1984); The General's Letter from Ugarit (1990; with S. Isre'el); and Muwatalli's Prayer (1996); and Alexander Uchitel (The University of Haifa), a leading specialist in Bronze Age archives.

The Programme

Week 1: What is Alphabet?

Sunday, 11 July
9.30-10.00 Registration and Opening
10.00 - 13.00 Principles of Alphabetic Writing (B. Powell)
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-17.00 Literacy in the Ancient World (A. Demsky)
20.00 Reception
Coffee breaks: 11.30. and 15.30

Monday, 12 July
10.00-13.00 Cuneiform Writing (A. Uchitel)
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-17.00 Egyptian Hieroglyphs (O. Goldwasser)
Coffee breaks: 11.30. and 15.30

Tuesday, 13 July
10.00-13.00 Cuneiform Hittite and Hieroglyphic Luwian: a Biscriptual
Society in Hatti (I. Singer)
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-17.00 Aegean Scripts (A. Uchitel)
Coffee breaks: 11.30. and 15.30

Wednesday, 14 July
10.00-13.00 The Beginnings of the Alphabet (A. Demsky)
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-17.00 Who Invented the Alphabet? (B. Powell)
Coffee breaks: 11.30. and 15.30

Thursday, 15 July
10.00-13.00 The Monumental Ekron Inscription: Context and Paleography (A.
Demsky)
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00 Visiting of the excavation sites Tel Miqne-Ekron and Tel el-Safi
(with Prof. A. Demsky).
Coffee break: 11.30

Friday, 16 July / Saturday, 17 July: Free

Week 2: From East to West

Sunday, 18 July
10.00-13.00 Early Greek Epigraphy (A. Johnston)
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-17.00 Early Greek Epigraphy (A. Johnston)
Coffee breaks: 11.30. and 15.30

Monday, 19 July
Excursion (Megiddo, Tiberias, the Sea of Galilee)

Tuesday, 20 July
10.00-13.00 Early Greek Epigraphy (A. Johnston)
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-17.00 Early Greek Epigraphy (A. Johnston)
Coffee breaks: 11.30. and 15.30
20.00 Dinner

Wednesday, 21 July
10.00-13.00 The Dipylon Oinochoe Inscription: a study (B. Powell)
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-17.00 The End of the Mycenaean Script: the Case of the Missing Heirs
(E. L. Bennett)
Coffee breaks: 11.30. and 15.30

Thursday, 22 July
10.00-13.00 From the Greek Alphabet to the Mycenaean Syllabic Script and
Back Again (E. L. Bennett)
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-15.00 Closing remarks


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