Material Culture and Identities in Eastern Mediterranean, session at the 2017 American Schools of Oriental Research Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, November 15–18, 2017

We invite scholars to submit their papers that deal with the issue of identity and its expression in the material and visual cultures of the eastern Mediterranean societies. The concept of identity is complicated, paradoxical, and culturally situated in time and place. Identity is both imposed by others and self-imposed, and is continuously asserted and reasserted in ways that are fluid and fixed. It can lie at the individual level and at a broader scale as it defines a person both as part of a group and as an individual. By recognizing the notion of material culture as integral to human action and the recurring nature of the relationship between objects and people, this session aims at understanding different identities through examination of personal artifacts, inscriptions, built environments, etc. We welcome papers exploring various facets of identity through examination of material and visual culture throughout the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Antiquity to Medieval periods. The goal is to gain a diachronic and cross-cultural understanding of both individual and community lives along the lines of profession, gender, ethnicity, class, age, etc.