The Second Bi-Annual Ancient Borderlands Conference: Beyond Borders- Ancient Societies and Their Conceptual Frontiers

I was privileged to present a paper at my Alma Mater, the University of California Santa Barbara. The conference is part of a broader project headed by Professor Digeser (department of History) and Professor Thomas (department of Religious Studies) to encourage interdisciplinary dialogue and to see the applications of the Borderlands Theory to discourses of the past.
What is the Borderlands Theory? The Borderlands theory began in anthropology, specifically in Scandinavia and the American West. Borderlands are broadly defined as areas where no one group (a group is a set of people who use identity markers as common denominators. These include, ethnicity, race, religion, culture, territory) has hegemony over another. One modern example is Iraq, where there is a slight Shia Muslims hold a slight majority over Sunni muslims. Borders are then artificially constructed to separate the groups.
So these borders can be physical (between states), religious (Jew, Christian, Muslim, pagan, and so on), cultural (art trends), philosophical (platonic Christians, Catholics, …), and these categories of course intertwine. The congress addressed many types of borders.
One such border was the identity boundary between Christians and Jews, as presented in a very interesting paper by Ms. Robyn Walsh. The paper dealt with an element of Jewish worship, a menorah, that was present in a Christian basilica. The building, Ms. Walsh argued, was in fact, a synagogue, before being re-consecrated as a Christian house of worship (which is something that happens a lot in Anglo-Saxon England and in later missionary efforts). Should Ms. Walsh be right in her assertion (she certainly presented a strong case for it), this would help shed light on early diaspora communities in the west.
Another border that was considered is the gender boundary in religious discourse. Jeff Herrick did a wonderful presentation on a letter by St Jerome to Lady Eustochium, in which he uses penitential images most often used to characterize female wailing and mourning. Doing so, Jerome emasculates himself, and makes himself more like a woman. The discussion that followed was most interesting. If Mr. Herrick's proposal that he was appealing to his female patrons is certainly true, there is, in fourth-century Christian rhetoric, a trend that seeks to remove gender from holiness. Traditionally female behaviors are becoming acceptable for males. Female saints, like the Desert Mothers, undergo a physical transformation. Through fasting, they lose appendages that are female: breasts disappear, faces are emaciated. Jerome's discourse was recast into this trend during the panel discussion.
Michael McCormick once said that the conferences where he learns the most are not always the ones that pertain directly to his subject. I completely agree. The paper that followed mine considered the rhetorical boundaries that are created in Chile. These boundaries separated the civilized conquistadors from the barbarian, or savage Mapuche indians. Language plays a role, Professor Goicovich; as arguments are formulated to explain what one sees, language limits the ability of a person to describe reality. In other words, language is part of the cultural spectrum that filters information and, to an extent, corrupts it. In another paper, Jon Felt argues that Borderlands are often negative constructions, used to increase the reputation of a particular center. Looking at Chinese Buddhist texts from the 3rd century A.D that consider China as a Boderland rather than a center, he analyzed that this was part of a larger trend that viewed Chinese Buddhism as inherently inferior to Chinese Buddhism; that Indian culture was the beacon of light, not Chinese culture. Tipping the scale back the other way was a main effort by the Tang dynasty to reformulate the central role of China in world history.
Overall, this was very well put-together congress, and I learned quite a bit. Pictures will be up soon.
I will address a paper that was very close to my area of expertise in a subsequent post.