International Conference

Reading the Way to the Netherworld.
Education and the Representations of the Beyond
in Later Antiquity

The conference focuses on representations of the Beyond in later Antiquity, a period of intense interaction and competition between various religious traditions and ideals of education. The concepts and images clustering around the Beyond are an important focal point for understanding the dynamics of religion and education in later Antiquity: although Christianity gradually supersedes paganism, the literary representations of the Beyond derived from classical literature and transmitted through the texts read at school, show a remarkable persistence and are still alive in medieval literature of the East and West. A specifically Christian Beyond develops only gradually, and coexists subsequently with pagan ideas, which in turn vary according to the respective literary and philosophical contexts. Thus, the various conceptualisations of the »undiscover’d country from whose bourn no traveller returns«, the true existential unknown, will serve as a point of reference for mirroring the changes and continuities in Imperial and Late Antique religion, education, and culture, and opening up further perspectives into Byzantium and the Medieval world.