Memories of Utopia: Destroying the Past to Create the Future (300–650 CE)

AN AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL (ARC) DISCOVERY PROJECT
(DP170104595 June 2017–December 2021)

This project examines the evidence for competing utopian ideologies in early Christianity and late antiquity, focusing on investigating and discovering how visions of the collective future were forged through the manipulation, destruction or repurposing of the literary and physical past in the name of utopian ideals.

Memories of Utopia: Destroying the Past to Create the Future (300–650 CE) is a collaborative research project funded through the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project scheme.

The project involved national, cross-institutional collaboration as well as international collaboration through scholars from Japan, the Netherlands, South Africa and Canada and was headed by Chief Investigators Prof. Bronwen Neil FAHA (Macquarie University), Assoc. Prof. Wendy Mayer FAHA (Australian Lutheran College | University of Divinity), and Prof. Pauline Allen FAHA FBA (Australian Catholic University). Partner Investigator was Assoc. Prof. Chris de Wet (University of South Africa).

Aims
The contributors to the project examine the available literary,archaeological and epigraphic sources from 300 to 650 CE, with three aims:

  • to build up an accurate and comprehensive picture of supremacist discourses of utopianism played out in Late Antique society, between Christians, pagans and Jews; and destructive activity against the religious ‘other’.
  • to identify supremacist discourses and destructive acts within each of the secultural-religious groupings.
  • to assess the impact of historical discourses of conflict and acts of destruction on the contemporary conflicts in the Middle East.

Cultural Benefit and Impact
Through its socio-economic objective of enhancing understanding of past societies, the project relates to two major fields of research, namely Classical Greek and Roman History, and Christian Studies, including Church History. However, its cultural benefits are much wider, since understanding the internal worldview of religious sects has direct relevance to law enforcement and the achievement of a peaceful society (Wessinger 2000).

Learning from the past in regard to how rhetoric of religious superiority operated and how clashes with a religious ‘other’ were handled is crucial not only for contemporary efforts to preserve common cultural heritage but also for the success of current attempts to understand modern-day conflicts, including the motives of ideologically extremist groups underpinning their often violent behaviour.

Adam Naming The Animals commons.wikimedia.org

 

 Project Proposal
“Utopia is an imaginary landscape of the past or future, which is based on an ideological pursuit of purity and happiness. There have been many ideological movements in history which lay claim to a pure religion of the past, one that is unsullied by political or moral compromise. One such movement in the current day is ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) or Daesh, which lays claim to a purified Islam, as lived and preached by the Prophet Muhammed (d. 632). Conflicting claims to a utopian past dominate current conflicts between Muslim supporters and opponents of Daesh in the Middle East, as well as Muslims and Christians in all parts of the world. This is evident from pleas to preserve the historical monuments of Syria which hark back to the “birthplace of civilization” and the “cradle of Christianity”, just as much as in the battle call of those who seek to destroy monuments in the lands of the new Islamic State, who see themselves as wiping out idolatry and restoring a pure (Sunni) Islam.The strategies – physical, rhetorical and political – that are used today in apocalyptic discourse to reframe and erase history for utopian ends were in fact also common strategies in Late Antiquity. In the pre-Islamic context, the religious struggles of Late Antiquity involved pagans, Jews and Christians. Destruction in the name of utopian ideals, then as now, operated on various levels: the rhetorical destruction of the written past and the material destruction of the physical past, in the form of shrines and oracles, churches and temples, statues and inscriptions, and religious images. The exclusive rhetoric of religious superiority easily escalated into violence (Bremmer 2014; Dijkstra 2015b).The investigators aim to uncover a hidden record of similar supremacist discourses operating in Late Antiquity (300-650 CE). Our initial analysis of the literary, documentary and material evidence suggests that such discourses were often accompanied by acts of violence and destruction of objects of religious and cultural significance. Such discourse and destructive actions characterized both inter- and intrareligious conflict in this period, with profound effects on the later history of the Middle East. There are three major themes: a) writing (and rewriting) the hagiographical record of conflicts between Christians in the Middle East; b) the destruction (past and present) of religious art and architectural monuments in Syria; c) forging a Christian identity in the Holy Land through the cultivation of sacred sites.”-B. Neil, ARC Discovery Project Proposal