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AWRC-OCLW Joint Seminar Approaching Ancient Lives

Add to Calendar AWRC-OCLW Joint Seminar Approaching Ancient LivesThe Leonard Wolfson Auditorium
Lectures and Seminars
Location
The Leonard Wolfson Auditorium
Speakers
Dr Bernhard Schirg - Object Biographies without Objects. Cultural Biographies of Things in Swedish Antiquarianism (1670-1720)
Cluster
Ancient World Cluster
Event type
Lectures and Seminars
Booking Required
Not Required
Accessibility
There is provision for wheelchair users.
Contact name
Diana Rodríguez Perez
Contact email
diana.rodriguezperez@wolfson.ox.ac.uk

*THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED BY THE ORGANISER*

In the decades around 1700, the myths of the Ancient World as well as its material heritage underwent one of the most massive appropriations in European history. Supported by the crown, Swedish scholars creatively revisited material such as Plato's dialogues on Atlantis, Egyptian tablets, Greek coins, Roman cameos, Norse myths, or shamanic drums from Lapland, always with the goal of proving that millennia ago, Scandinavia had been home to a high civilization, the cultural cradle of Europe. My talk will introduce to this fascinating and influential period of antiquarianism in the service of nationalism, and present the approach I pursue in my research project Reaching for Atlantis. The cultural biographies of objects under the Swedish Empire and beyond. A concluding case study will illustrate how antiquarians from abroad confessed loyalty to Sweden's antiquarian paradigm by equipping antiquities with new biographies, and sought support by presenting them effectively at court and