April 1, 2010
Samuel Lieu, Judith Lieu to speak on campus
Samuel Lieu, professor of ancient history at McQuairie University in Australia, and Judith Lieu, Lady Margaret’s professor of divinity at Cambridge University, will be speaking next week on campus.
Samuel Lieu will speak on Christians and Manichaeans on the South China Coast in the Era of Marco Polo at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 7, in 120 Communications. Lieu has broad research interests in ancient and early medieval history, especially in the study of the contacts between ancient civilizations across Central Asia. He is co-director of the Ancient History Documentary Research Centre at McQuairie University and co-director of the UNESCO-sponsored Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum Project.
His current major research project is on the history of Zayton (Quanzhou) in South China — a key port-city of the Maritime Silk Road at the time of Marco Polo and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. He also conducts regular field surveys in Syria and S. Turkey. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and presents the Australian Academy at the International Union of Academies.
Judith Lieu will speak on Between Text and Community: Jews and Christians in the Second Century at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 8, in 120 Communications. She said this about her talk:
“Much of what we know about Jews and Christians in the early Empire comes from the writings they left behind. These writings have tended to reinforce a picture of separate groups and communities, defining themselves in different ways and even against each other. A closer look, however, suggests a rather more complicated picture, challenging easy assumptions, but reflecting the messiness of normal experience.”
Judith Lieu has published extensively in the field of early Christianity and its emergence as a form of Judaism within the world of Graeco-Roman culture. She is particularly well-known for her books exploring identity formation. Her current research project is a study of the heresiological construction of Marcion and an attempt to locate him within the literary, social, and, theological contexts of the second century.
Both lectures are free and open to the public.
