Patristics Newsletter
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Grants
Dr Bronwen Neil has received an Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung Fellowship for a six-month period of research at University of Bonn in the second half of 2008. She will be working with Prof Wolfram Kinzig on a project entitled “Leo the Great and poverty in fifth-century Rome”. This research forms part of the ARC funded project on Poverty and Welfare in Late Antiquity that will be completed by members of the Centre for Early Christian Studies at the end of 2008. Dr Neil has also been granted a Return-to-work Award ($10 000) by ACU for second semester 2008 which will allow her to travel to Germany.
Members of the Centre for Early Christian Studies (Pauline Allen, Wendy Mayer, Bronwen Neil, Geoffrey Dunn and Silke Trzcionka) in collaboration with a team of Japanese scholars (Kazuhiko Demura, Miyako Demura, Shigeki Tsuchihashi, Satoshi Toda and Jun Suzuki) have been awarded a grant of $50,000 for two years by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and the Bilateral Joint Research Project between JSPS and the Australian Research Council (ARC) for their project “Joint Studies in the Perspectives on Poverty in an Era of Crisis–Testing Some Social Models of Early Christianity”. JSPS’s support mainly takes the form of travel grants, and the ultimate purpose of this project is to build sustainable networks by supporting researcher interaction between the two teams. The Japanese research team will complement the Centre’s ARC-funded project “Poverty and Welfare in Late Antiquity” ($320,000 in 2006-8).
Grants 2007 | Grants 2006 | Grants 2005
Publications
Matthew and his Christian Contemporaries edited by David C. Sim and Boris Repschinski was published by The Library of New Testament Studies and compares the author of Matthew's Gospel with a selection of contemporary Christian authors and texts. This presents an area for discussion in New Testament studies as much of the religious literature contemporary with Matthew displays a diminished relevance of the Mosaic Law. In this book the contributors seek to establish the distinctiveness of Matthew by comparing his theological perspective with the documents many believe to have been his major sources - Mark and Q - and with the two remaining Gospels, the Pauline epistles, and other early Christian texts.
Publications 2007 | Publications 2006 | Publications 2005
Research Visits
Professor David Runia, Master of Queen's College, University of Melbourne, visited on 6 March 2008
The baptistery of the Arians in Raveana" was presented by Frau Claudia Dobrinski of University of Paderborn when she visited the Centre on 17 January 2008.
Research Visits 2007 | Research Visits 2006 | Research Visits 2005
Conferences
AEMA's fifth annual conference, "Welcoming the Stranger in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages", will be held from 1-3 October 2008 at the Sebel Conference Suites, Charlotte Street, Brisbane, hosted by the Australian Catholic University.
The Fifth International Triennial Conference of the Centre for Early Christian Studies incorporating the next meeting of the Western Pacific Rim Patristics Society was held at St Patrick's campus in Melbourne from 9 -12 January 2008. At the same time, we held the next Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church conference, on the theme “Poverty and Riches”, at St Patrick’s Campus, Melbourne, plans for which are already well on the way, as we were informed by Lawrence Cross and Tom Buchanan. For additional information, please visit its website.
Conferences 2007 | Conferences 2006 | Conferences 2005
Other News
Associate Professor David Sim has been appointed to the editorial board of New Testament Studies, the most prestigious journal in the field. His appointment runs from 2009 to 2011. In July he was at a conference in Aarhus, Denmark, on the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. This was a specialist conference with only eighteen invited participants. Associate Professor Sim delivered a paper on the current state of research on the Gospel of Matthew, which will be published by Mohr Siebeck in the proceedings of the conference.
Establishing ties with the Catholic church in Antioch: From June 9-15, 2008, Wendy Mayer visited the ancient city of Antioch (modern Antakya, Turkey) with US scholars Tina Shepardson (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) and Dayna Kalleres (University of California, San Diego). Each of the three is researching a different aspect of the late antique history of the city. The purpose of the visit was to examine the topography of ancient Antioch in relation to the distribution of its Christian churches and other religious sites during the fourth to seventh centuries. Time was also spent exploring the few surviving Greco-Roman remains in and around the city and its ancient port, Seleucia Pieria, as well as locating caves on the side of Mt Silpius that may have been occupied at that time by hermits. One of the pleasures of the trip was meeting Padre Domenico Bertogli ofmcap, the priest of the Antakya Katolik Kilisesi (www.anadolukatolikkilisesi.org/antakya), who has a personal interest in the city's Christian past and in making the local inhabitants more aware of its significance. One of the many outcomes of the research visit was a mutual agrement to assist Padre Domenico to establish in Antakya a library of publications on the history of Antioch to be housed at the Katolik Kilisesi. Plans are underway to make a second visit in 2010.
Dr Edward Morgan has been asked to participate as a panelist at the upcoming New Voices conference at the Lowy Institute for International Policy, in July, 2008. The Lowy Institute is an independent international policy think tank based in Sydney. Its objective is to generate new ideas and dialogue on international developments and Australia’s role in the world. The New Voices initiative is part of the Institute’s outreach efforts and serves three main goals: to introduce the Institute and some of the bigger questions it grapples with to a new audience; to provide engaged early-career people from a variety of backgrounds with a platform to express their insights and ideas on important issues of international policy; and to facilitate professional cross-pollination. New Voices themes emanate directly from the mandate of the Lowy Institute, which is to analyse in a practical, policy-relevant manner Australia’s place in the world and the global challenges and opportunities facing different groups in Australia. Dr Morgan will speak on “Corporate Social Responsibility: A Force for Good?” [Lowy information courtesy of website: see http://www.lowyinstitute.org/ ]
Four members of the Centre participated centrally in the North American Patristics Society Annual Meeting in Chicago. Dr Bronwen Neil delivered a plenary lecture entitled Gifts and Giving: Modelling Evergetism in the Fifth Century. Drs. Mayer, Dunn and Morgan presented a combined panel entitled Economics and Poverty in the Early Christian World: Boundaries, Realities, and Frameworks. The session was chaired by Dr Neil. Work from each member emerged from the ongoing ARC-funded grant on the study of poverty and welfare in late antiquity. A monograph from this project will be published in 2009.
Dr Edward Morgan has signed a contract for the publication of his Cambridge doctoral dissertation with T&T Clark, Continuum. It will be published in 2009 as The Incarnation of the Word: The Theology of Language of Augustine of Hippo. Dr Morgan has also signed a contract with T&T Clark, Continuum to co-edit The T&T Clark Companion to Augustine and Modern Theology with Dr. Chad Pecknold (Loyola, Maryland; and CUA, Washington). This work will be a major interpretative volume synthesising the relationship between ancient and modern readings of Augustine of Hippo. It will be published in 2010.
For Semester 2, 2008 Dr Mary Sheather has been awarded a bursary to research at St Deiniol's Library at Hawarden in Wales. The only residential library in the United Kingdom, St Deiniol's was founded by the Victorian statesman William Ewert Gladstone and has a strong theological, historical, and political collection.