Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissen­schaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Archäologie

Call for Papers

Diese Konferenz untersucht die Rolle der asymmetrischen Kommunikation in antiken Gesellschaften und stellt die Frage, in welcher Weise ungleiche Machtverhältnisse, Statusunterschiede und soziokulturelle Hierarchien die soziale Interaktion prägten.
Wir freuen uns auf Beiträge von Wissenschaftlern aus den Registerstudien, der Historischen Linguistik und verwandten Disziplinen, die diese Dynamik aus linguistischer, visueller und kontextueller Perspektive erforschen.

International Conference on  
“Asymmetric Communication in Ancient Societies” 
Call for Papers 

Date: October 16-17, 2025  
Location: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 
Submission Deadline: April 30, 2025 

Conference Theme 

The study of communication in ancient societies provides valuable insights into the 
sociocultural dynamics, hierarchies, and interactional practices of the past. This conference 
aims to explore the concept of asymmetric communication, focusing on contexts where power 
imbalances, status differences, and socio-cultural hierarchies influenced modes of interaction. 
The term asymmetric communication describes situational conditions in which the interaction 
between interlocutors is not at eye level, i.e., it is unbalanced or uneven in respect to socio-cultural 
factors. In that respect, one may investigate aspects such as identity and number of 
participants/interlocutors as well as their characteristics, social roles, and statuses.  
We invite studies based on ancient/historical texts, images, and image-text compositions from 
diverse cultural settings. As for written sources, these may concern the formulation of requests, 
commands or prohibitions, and the systematic choice of vocatives, epithets or idiomatic 
expressions, among other devices. Pictorial sources on the other hand may raise questions 
regarding size, orientation, and grouping of represented individuals as well as their attributes 
and insignia, actions and gestures. Communicative constellations can be analyzed in two 
dimensions: the production and reception of a text by historical persons (text-external 
dimension) and the communication between protagonists represented within the story world 
(text-internal dimension). 
Departing from the field of ancient studies and building on advances in sociolinguistics, 
historical linguistics, and multimodal analysis, we invite contributions that examine the 
linguistic, visual, and contextual aspects of asymmetric communication across ancient societies. 
The goal is to better understand how power, agency, and status were negotiated, maintained, or 
challenged through communicative acts. How interlocutors navigate in such communicative 
settings and what strategies, e.g., politeness vs. impoliteness, they employ, is of primary interest 
here. 

Topics of Interest 

We welcome submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following topics:

- Theoretical frameworks for analyzing asymmetric communication in historical contexts 
  across cultures and languages

- Case studies on hierarchical communication in ancient written or visual corpora 
- The role of status, power, and authority in shaping communicative practices 
- The occurrence and underlying motivations of biases in the representation of social 
  constellations 
- Language and register variation in its connection to asymmetric communication 
- Multimodal perspectives: interaction of text and imagery in conveying power dynamics 
- Diachronic perspectives on the evolution of communicative asymmetries in ancient 
  societies

 
Research Questions 

The following research questions may be considered:

- Which recurring asymmetric social constellations can be identified in ancient texts and 
  artifacts across cultures and languages? 
- To what extent are these representations realistic or on the contrary stylistically exaggerated 
  or even reversed (e.g. by use of polemics, satire, parody, etc.)? 
- What phenomena (linguistic, visual, etc.) are characteristic of asymmetric communication 
  in different sociocultural contexts?  
- How can balanced or peer-group communicative situations in ancient societies be identified 
  and distinguished from asymmetric ones?  
- In what ways do the materiality and visual design of artifacts contribute to asymmetric 
  communication? 
- What are the implications of asymmetric communication for understanding broader social 
  structures and hierarchies in ancient cultures and societies? 

We invite scholars from diverse disciplines (e.g., Egyptology, Assyriology, Oriental Studies, 
Classics, Historical Linguistics, Archaeology, and Art History) and contributors of all 
experience levels studying historical and ancient languages and texts, images and iconography, 
material culture and contexts to join us in discussing any of these main topics or to propose 
other research questions based on their work.  

Abstract submission 

Abstracts of approximately 300 words (excluding references), outlining the research objectives, 
methodology, and main findings should be submitted in English or German to the following 
email address by April 30, 2025: asymcom-conference@hu-berlin.de. Notification of 
acceptance will be sent by May 30, 2025. For inquiries, please feel free to contact the above
mentioned email address.  

Format 

The sessions will be held in person. Speakers are expected to give an oral presentation of 20
25 minutes. 

Silvia Kutscher – Dina Serova – Svenja K. Damm – Tobias B. Paul – Amnah El-Shiaty

Gender, social group and (self-)representation

Intersectional identities in IIIrd - early IInd millennium BCE Egypt, Nubia and Near East 

May 15-17, 2025

This on-site workshop is dedicated to exploring the construction and expression of both individual and collective identity, with a specific emphasis on gender, in ancient Egypt, Nubia and Near East, focusing on the period of the III^rd – early II^nd millennium BCE. The invited scholars will question these issues, building specifically upon the feminist theory of intersectionality.

In this methodological framework, first developed by Crenshaw (1989) and more recently by Collins (2019), identity is to be understood as the intersection of multiple parameters in a given society, such as gender, status, social community or group, ethnicity, age, physical condition, among others. Intersectionality has recently been implemented in archaeological disciplines, as this critical social theory helps scholars to look at documentation differently and to focus on the multiplicity and complexity of identities, in both modern and ancient societies.

In this context, this workshop will address especially (but not exclusively) the intersections of gender(s) and social group(s), as well as the representation and reflection of these intersections in material culture. The following research questions will be considered:

• To what extent did these parameters and their intersections contribute to the construction of individual and collective identities?
• How were they depicted and expressed in the material culture (texts, images, and archaeological material)? How did they interact?
• More specifically, how were gender norms nuanced and influenced by the expression of other components of individual or collective identities in material discourses?

In addition, this workshop will provide an opportunity to discuss the adaptation or integration of intersectionality and other non-Egyptological methodological frameworks (especially those stemming from gender studies) into Egyptology, and a substantial part of the workshop will therefore be devoted to discussion.

The event will open with a keynote lecture by Uroš Matić (University Alliance Ruhr, Essen / University of Graz): “Palimpsests, diagrams and interweaving experiences: Intersectionality and studies of gender in ancient Egypt”, on May 15 at 18:00, in Room 2091-2092.

Please kindly note that attendance at the keynote lecture is free. For the following two days, due to a limited number of seats in room 2095A, registration is required (please send an email to: romane.betbeze@hu-berlin.de).

The programme you will find here.

The poster you will find here.