Mediterranean Identities in the Premodern Era

The first full length volume to approach the premodern Mediterranean from a fully interdisciplinary perspective this collection defines the Mediterranean as a coherent region with distinct patterns of social political and cultural exchange. The essays explore the production modification and circulation of identities based on religion ethnicity profession gender and status as free or slave within three distinctive Mediterranean geographies: islands entrepôts and empires. Individual essays explore such topics as interreligious conflict and accommodation; immigration and diaspora; polylingualism; classical imitation and canon formation; traffic in sacred objects; Mediterranean slavery; and the dream of a reintegrated Roman empire. Integrating environmental social political religious literary artistic and linguistic concerns this collection offers a new model for approaching a distinct geographical region as a unique site of cultural and social exchange.