Controlling Contested Places Late Antique Antioch and the Spatial Politics of Religious Controversy

“Shepardson provides an exciting study that reintroduces us to the physical space of the city of Antioch. She uncovers a new landscape defined by its physical shape and its cultural meaning while simultaneously revealing how fourth and fifth century Antiochenes understood, interpreted, and argued about their city. Controlling Contested Places then moves us closer to the late antique city actually experienced by those people who lived in it.”—Edward Watts is Alkiviadis Vassiliadis Endowed Chair and Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego

“Reading Libanius, Chrysostom, and Theodoret through the lenses of cultural geography, spatial analysis, and memory studies, Controlling Contested Places deftly reveals how these and other writers plotted the religious, ecclesiastical, and social tensions of late antique Antioch onto imagined geographies of the city and its hinterland. Antioch—like contemporary Milan, Jerusalem, and Alexandria—emerges from Shepardson’s study as an idea and a place continually under construction, a past ever at the mercy of its present.”—Dennis Trout, Associate Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Missouri

“By addressing the elite control of place, both physical and conceptual, in both countryside and city, Shepardson puts a new spin on the process of ‘Christianization’. Delving into the worlds of social and cultural geography for her insights, here she opens up a rich and compelling landscape to the reader. This is an exciting new addition to the study of Antioch, Late Antiquity and, more broadly, religious controversy.”—Wendy Mayer is Research Fellow of Early Christian Studies in the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University