CfP: Weather, knowledge and experience in Late Antiquity, Nijmegen (the Netherlands), June 2026
Ancient weather perspectives. Perceptions, representations and realities (400-700). A transdisciplinary and international conference. Nijmegen (the Netherlands), June 2026
Organisers: dr Roald Dijkstra & dr Joop van Waarden
Weather conditions are traditionally one of the most popular topics of everyday conversation in the Netherlands, but due to the continuing flux of alarming reports on climate change, we may now be even more sensitive to the huge impact weather has on us. This impact certainly was as significant for people living in ancient times as it is today. This conference focuses on the relationship between the actual impact of weather and its representation in literary and visual sources in the period of long late antiquity. Still too often, antique weather conditions are taken for granted and the weather in (late) antiquity is not a particularly frequent topic in academic discourse, although things certainly have changed in recent years (Antiquité Tardive 29, 2002, Leveau in particular; Taub 2003). However, much literature focuses on catastrophes, such as floods, inundations instead of everyday weather (e.g. Harper 2017; Lambrecht 2023; Sonnabend 2005; Speyer 1989; Walter 2017). Much remains to be done, too, in the combination of philology, meteorology, archaeology and (art)historically based research, let alone inclusion of historical weather research. The broad chronological and geographical scope of this conference allow for a balanced assessment of the sources, whereas the source-based approach also ensures an attentive contextualised use of the late antique material.
The world of late antiquity encompassed three of the five climate zones that are regularly distinguished nowadays: the arid, maritime and continental zone. However, climate does not only fluctuate today, but has fluctuated considerably over time. In the opening session, climate historians will shed light on the specific weather circumstances in different parts of the late antique world: the Mediterranean basin, North-West Europe, Central Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. This allows all participants to relate the findings from the sources presented in the panels to the actual weather circumstances. In this way, the degree to which actual weather conditions determined the representation of weather in our visual and literary sources can be investigated properly.
The ensuing panels comprise four main lines of investigation within this geographical scheme in the late antique period (roughly 4th-7th century):
- Knowledge-utilization: ancient meteorological sources in Late Antiquity,
- Reflections on weather,
- Representations of weather,
- Agency of weather
Obviously, the topics of these panels are closely related and sources often fit several categories. In the first panel, the way in which knowledge from classical Antiquity (e.g. Aristotle, Theophrastus, Pliny and others) was transmitted and used and the extent to which it was known is the central topic. The ‘Reflections on weather’-panel may include sources that reflect on weather from a (primarily) cultural, religious and/or scientific perspective, such as treatises, letters, sermons and Biblical exegesis. ‘Representations of weather’ discusses the way in which weather is represented in artistic sources, both visual and literary, in which they are often embedded in a narrative context to which their function is closely related (e.g. martyr stories). In panel 4, the perspective changes to the weather itself: its agency and the relation to the agency of God, the saints and their believers is central to this session, in which the different sources explored in panels 1-3 come together.
A concluding session will bring the results of the opening panel and the case studies together in a group discussion incited by a key-note lecture.
The findings from our colleagues in the opening panel will enable us to relate the weather we encounter in the ancient sources to the actual weather conditions, in order to better understand the boundaries between fiction and reality. At the same time, this conference analyses the roles attributed to weather phenomena in relation to late antique beliefs and cultural practices. As a result, a kaleidoscopic impression of weather and its perceptions in late antiquity will emerge, which takes into account, next to regional diversity, the diversity of cultural and religious (both Christian, traditional [‘pagan’ in all its diversity] and Jewish) contexts.
Contact: please e-mail us before 1 March 2025 to show your interest or for further questions at ancientweather@ru.nl! We expect to be able to offer you a comfortable stay in the Netherlands. We will probably not be able to cover travel expenses.
This workshop is the second workshop of the Weather, knowledge and experience in Late Antiquity research initiative of Radboud University Nijmegen and Ghent University. The first workshop will be organised in Ghent, Belgium: Meteorology in the first millennium. Socializing nature, naturalizing society, March 2026. The proceedings of both conferences will be published.
Bibliography:
Harper, Kyle (2017), The Fate of Rome. Climate, Disease, & the End of an Empire (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press).
Lambrecht, Ulrich (2023), 'Die Frage nach Gefährdung und Verfall des Imperium Romanum. Römische Krisen- und Niedergangsszenarien in der aktuellen Forschung', Plekos, 25, 341-402.
Leveau, Philippe (2022), 'Le climat et l’Antiquité Tardive : ses restitutions par les Modernes et sa perception par les Anciens', Antiquité Tardive, 29, 81-94.
Sonnabend, Holger (2005), 'Zwischen Fortschritt und Zerstörung: Mensch und Umwelt in der Antike', in Astrid Schürmann (ed.), Physik / Mechanik (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner), 118-28.
Speyer, W. (1989), 'Religiös-sittliches und frevelhaftes Verhalten in seiner Auswirkung auf die Naturgewalten. Zur Kontinuität einer volkstümlichen religiösen Vorstellung in Antike und Christentum', in W. Speyer (ed.), Frühes Christentum im antiken Strahlungfeld (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck)), 254-63.
Taub, Liba (2003), Ancient Meteorology (London: Routledge).
Walter, Justine (2017), 'Poseidon's Wrath and the End of Helike. Notions about the Anthropogenic Character of Disasters in Antiquity', in Christopher Schliephake (ed.), Ecocriticism, Ecology, and the Cultures of Antiquity (Lanham (etc.): Lexington Books), 31-43.