The reception of antiquity in the Middle Ages and especially the Early Modern period has been extensively studied. Sea power and thalassocracy are familiar topics in the fields of classics and ancient history. Nevertheless, only rarely have the two themes been combined, and to date there has been no overarching treatment of the later reception of ancient sea power.
In order to fill this gap, we organized a conference in Berlin in May 2015, entitled 'Thalassokratographie: Rezeption und Transformation antiker Seeherrschaft'. This title was programmatic. On the one hand, we were interested in the act of writing about sea power and thalassocracy, in the act of creating images and ideas that gave ancient sea power a prominent place in later times - 'thalassocrato-graphy', so to speak, not 'thalassocracy'. On the other, we were concerned with issues of transformation. The conference was not focused solely on a one-dimensional process of reception of classical antiquity in later epochs, but aimed above all to ask how, during this process, images and ideas of antiquity were newly created, with which intentions and to what ends, and how these newly-developed ideas about ancient texts, myths and narratives may even have influenced the later scholarly treatment of these phenomena.
We intend to publish the proceedingss of this conference1, the program of which can be seen here, in a volume that will then be the first publication dedicated to this topic. It will be published as a volume in the series 'Transformationen der Antike' (de Gruyter), depending on a successful peer-review-process. In addition to the papers presented at the conference we would welcome further contributions (in English, German or French) that, while adhering to the approach outlined above, treat one of the following topics:
The reception of ancient sea power
- in architecture
- as part of monuments or fountains
- in the visual arts, esp. in paintings
- in music
- in literature, esp. historical novels
- in the naming of ships
- in film, theatre and opera
- in modern mass media
Abstracts of no more than 300 words and a short CV should be sent to h.kopp[at]fu-berlin.de. Those who submitted an abstract will be informed within two weeks whether or not their proposals have been accepted.
Christian Wendt (christian.wendt[at]fu-berlin.de) and Hans Kopp (h.kopp[at]fu-berlin.de) will be glad to answer any questions you might have.
- 1. (see the link to the program https://www.topoi.org/event/29492/)