Romans Debate Research Articles

Sometimes It Comes back: Yet Another Cycle of Romanization Debate? (Notes on O. Belvedere, J. Bergemann. Imperium Romanum: Romanization between Colonization and Globalization. Palermo, 2021)

Sometimes It Comes back: Yet Another Cycle of Romanization Debate? (Notes on O. Belvedere, J. Bergemann. Imperium Romanum: Romanization between Colonization and Globalization. Palermo, 2021)

Contingent Persistence: Continuity, Change, and Identity in the Romanization Debate

This article explores continuity, change, and identity in the context of the Romanization debate in Roman archaeology, connecting to wider conversations on deconstructing acculturation frameworks. Despite challenges to the Romanization paradigm, it has proven difficult to circumvent reductionist categories that a priori essentialize identity and material culture as only either Roman or native. It is argued that the concept of continuity and change as separate trajectories is an offshoot of this dichotomy, confining continuity to a past indexed by the transposition of preconquest forms and relegating transformation to a future demonstrated by Roman imposition. To move beyond dichotomous constraints, it is necessary to reconceptualize how continuity and change are linked to time, identity, and practice. Articulating with current approaches in anthropology and archaeology, this article considers continuity, change, and claims to difference as emergent and dialectic, resisting the confinement of the past and its material resonance to an insular, default state of being. The approach advocates disaggregating categories, tracing the multiply registered and multiscalar relational components that constitute contexts for social interaction and possibility. These ideas are explored through domestic space and gender relations during the Late Iron Age and Early Roman period in Dorset, southwest England.

The letter to the Romans as Paul’s legacy to theology: Reception in exposition

‘The Romans Debate’ fills not only volumes, but nowadays a bookshelf. In this paper I will neither argue in favour nor against this verdict of Bornkamm on the setting of Romans. Approaching his idea of the letter to the Romans as Paul’s legacy from reception history, I want to argue that the letter to the Romans became Paul’s legacy to Christian theology. In fact, it is the legacy of Paul. What I mean is that the reception of Paul’s theology is intertwined with the ‘Wirkungsgeschichte’ of the letter to the Romans. Pauline theology had its impact through the letter to the Romans.

Getting out of the comfort zone. Reply to responses

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.

Understanding objects in motion. Anarchaeologicaldialogue on Romanization

AbstractThis essay argues that Romanization revolves around understanding objects in motion and that Roman archaeologists should therefore focus on (1) globalization theory and (2) material-culture studies as important theoretical directions for the (near) future. The present state and scope of the Romanization debate, however, seem to prevent a fruitful development in that direction. The first part of this paper therefore briefly analyses the Romanization debate and argues that large parts of ‘Anglo-Saxon Roman archaeology’ have never been really post-colonial, but in fact from the mid-1990s onwards developed a theoretical position that should be characterized as anti-colonial. This ideologically motivated development has resulted in several unhealthy divides within the field, as well as in an uncomfortable ending of the Romanization debate. The present consensus within English-speaking Roman archaeology ‘to do away with Romanization’ does not seem to get us at all ‘beyond Romans and Natives’, and, moreover, has effectively halted most of the discussion about how to understand and conceptualize ‘Rome’. The second part of the article presents two propositions outlining how to move forward: globalization theory and material-culture studies. Through this focus we will be able to better understand ‘Rome’ as (indicating) objects in motion and the human–thing entanglements resulting from a remarkable punctuation of connectivity. This focus is important as an alternative perspective to all existing narratives about Romanization because these remain fundamentally historical, in the sense that they reduce objects to expressions (of identity) alone. It is time for our discussions about ‘Rome’ to move ‘beyond representation’ and to become genuinely archaeological at last, by making material culture, with its agency and materiality, central to the analyses.

Fetishizing the Romans

Miguel John Versluys offers a richly textured essay in an attempt to resuscitate the concept of Romanization, which he has found to have been nearly flogged to death, to paraphrase an oft-quoted characterization of the Romanization debate in recent years. To be more precise, he argues that certain quarters of Romanist academia have ‘ganged up’ on the concept over the last decade or so and that others – the implicitly silent majority – have begun to stage a comeback in recent years. Versluys's self-imposed mission is to shore up the Roman resurgence with freshly cut intellectual joists.

Struggling with a Roman inheritance. A response to Versluys

I am very grateful to Miguel John Versluys for this paper, which raises several important issues that derive from current debates in Roman archaeology. I am aware of the context of Versluys's arguments as I am a contributor to the forthcoming volumeGlobalization and the Roman world(which Versluys has jointly edited; Pitts and Versluys 2014). I am pleased to be able to develop some of the themes outlined in my chapter for that volume (Hingley 2014b) through this reflection upon Versluys's contribution to the developing debate. The issues raised by Versluys are particularly timely since a number of younger colleagues have observed that the critical focus provided by what I shall term ‘post-colonial Roman archaeologies’ (PCRAs) is stifling innovative research. PCRA is the term I use to address the body of research and publication characterized by Versluys as ‘Anglo-Saxon Roman archaeology’ (for reasons given below). I did not attend the TRAC session at Frankfurt to which Versluys refers, but I recognize his observation that there is a genuine concern about the form and content of PCRAs arising from Roman archaeologists both in Britain and overseas. PCRAs have focused around two core themes: (1) critiquing the concept of Romanization and (2) the development of new ways of approaching the Roman Empire. Versluys suggests that this discussion has culminated in ‘an uncomfortable ending’ (p. 1) for the Romanization debate and his proposal includes the reintroduction of this concept. Taking a rather different perspective, I shall propose that a dynamic and transformative agenda is spreading across several continents and that PCRAs form an important aspect of this developing perspective.

Book Review: Solving the Romans Debate

Book Review: Solving the Romans Debate

Book Review: Solving the Romans Debate

Book Review: Solving the Romans Debate

The Romans Debate. Revised and Expanded Edition. By Karl P. Donfried. Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1991 (1977). Pp. lxxii + 372. £18.95.

The Romans Debate. Revised and Expanded Edition. By Karl P. Donfried. Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1991 (1977). Pp. lxxii + 372. £18.95.

Book Review: The Romans Debate, Revised and Expanded Edition

Book Review: The Romans Debate, Revised and Expanded Edition

Book Review: The Romans Debate

Book Review: The Romans Debate

The Romans debate - continued

The Romans debate - continued

The Romanization Debate

Previous articleNext article No AccessCurrent IssuesThe Romanization DebateHilary ChappellHilary Chappell Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 4Jul., 1980 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2158952 Views: 19Total views on this site Citations: 5Citations are reported from Crossref Journal History This article was published in The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs (1979-1995), which is continued by The China Journal (1995-present). Copyright Australian Journal of Chinese AffairsPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Victoria Fendel The missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle, Written Language & Literacy 24, no.22 (Jan 2022): 198–228.https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.00053.fenGuowen Shang Wrestling between English and Pinyin, Journal of Language and Politics 19, no.44 (Jan 2020): 624–645.https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.19072.shaSophie Zhou , English Today 35, no.11 ( 2019): 36.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078417000578Hilary Chappell, Alain Peyraube The History of Chinese Grammars in Chinese and Western Scholarly Traditions, Language & History 57, no.22 (Oct 2014): 107–136.https://doi.org/10.1179/1759753614Z.00000000032Doreen Kum, Yih Hwai Lee, Cheng Qiu Testing to prevent bad translation: Brand name conversions in Chinese–English contexts, Journal of Business Research 64, no.66 (Jun 2011): 594–600.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2010.06.015