30 XI: Michael Hahn (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich) wystąpi z referatem Clerics at the hippodrome? Foucault’s heterotopia, spatial semantics, and the construction of norms in late antique church Communities

Abstract

The paper will examine the extent to which social control in terms of spatial regimes was effective in late antique church communities. I propose that some real life boundaries were more virulent for certain Christian core groups (clerics, ascetics, etc.) than for other members of the communities, who, however, were just as vigilant in ensuring compliance with these spatially defined normative systems. The access of late antique clerics to the games in hippodromes, amphitheatres or theatres, which were often demonised by representatives of the church in the surviving sermons and synodal resolutions, provides a very good illustration of such multipolar evaluation systems for the late antique church communities. These are social constructs that can be described as heterotopic systems in the tradition of Michel Foucault. The evidence from Late Antiquity however also highlights the problems of the model postulated by Foucault when contrasted by social realities of the time. Contrary to previous research, these multipolar normative structures and their extension into social space had a strong influence on whether late antique clerics were able to participate in the games.