As part of the 11th Celtic Conference in Classics, to be held at the University of St Andrews from 11th-14th July 2018, we are hosting a three-day interdisciplinary panel on ‘Approaching Landscape in the Classical Tradition’.
The panel will focus on the theories and methodologies underpinning the study of landscape within Classics and cognate fields. ‘Approaching landscape’ in a historical, literary, or critical sense is by no means straightforward. The humanities have come relatively late to the ‘landscape turn’ in cultural research, and researchers of space and landscape have often drawn on self-made toolkits of theories and methodologies collected from disparate disciplines – such as geography, anthropology, and sociology – to form their own approaches to landscape. Speakers will share their own toolkits, and make explicit the assumptions and ideas underlying their analyses of human interaction with the landscape in past contexts. Our provisional schedule can be found here.
In addition to individual papers, the panel will feature extensive time for discussion between participants. As one output from the panel, we plan to produce a detailed report which will serve as a working guide to the different methodologies proposed, and the potential they might offer to future research on landscape.