Getting out of the comfort zone. Reply to responses

Abstract

My essay is intended as an archaeological dialogue on Romanization in the sense that it tries ‘to creatively discuss what we mean when we say “Rome”, across boundaries set by disciplines or scholarly traditions, fuelled by new developments in other fields, and especially in terms of material culture’ (p. 6). Therefore it is looking ahead on purpose, with the historiography of the field (only) serving as a means to an end and not so much as a point of discussion in its own right. Resuscitating, repairing or refitting the concept of Romanization itself is not at stake: on purpose I talked about ‘reinvigorating the Romanization debate’ while not discussing the feasibility of the concept in the present situation (‘When I use the term “reinvigorating” I explicitly do not mean to indicate that we should continue the debate as if Romanization were either good or bad, or to question whether or not we should use the term at all’) (p. 6). The essay, therefore, is not so much about Romanization 2.0 per se, but rather about triggering a debate to get us going again or, to paraphrase Woolf's conclusion, to get us out of the Romanization/‘Romanization’ comfort zone. The Romanization debate indeed seems to have brought us a new canon of reference works and key concerns, as Woolf rightly remarks. I argue that we should urgently try to refresh the canon by looking critically at what has become received wisdom and by simultaneously exploring what could become new key questions for our field. Canonization should be a dynamic and ongoing process.