Sounding Roman

"Sounding Roman narrates the vibrant use of music to challenge long-term marginalization of Turkish Roman ("Gypsies"). Descriptions of weddings, recording studios, rehearsals and concerts enable readers to witness the emergence of new social identities and political responses as Roman musicians bring new musical forms and styles into local and world music markets."

Considering the viewpoints of both the conquerors and the conquered, this captivating volume traces the rise of Rome and the extension of Roman power across Europe from 1000 BC to AD 400. It reconstructs as much as possible the indigenous experience of contact with Rome, showing how Roman domination affected the already complex world of Iron Age Europe before leaving a new "barbarian" world in its wake. Roman Europe 1000 BC-AD 400 includes contributions from eight experts who use both literary and archaeological evidence to analyze the transformation of Europe and the origins of the Middle Ages. Featuring chapters on Iron Age Europe, Roman society, warfare and the army, economy and trade, religions, and the cultural implications of Roman conquest, the book also contains narrative chapters on war and politics.

One of the most significant transformations of the Roman world in Late Antiquity was the integration of barbarian peoples into the social, cultural, religious, and political milieu of the Mediterranean world. The nature of these transformations was considered at the sixth biennial Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity Conference, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in March of 2005, and this volume presents an updated selection of the papers given on that occasion, complemented with a few others,. These 25 studies do much to break down old stereotypes about the cultural and social segregation of Roman and barbarian populations, and demonstrate that, contrary to the past orthodoxy, Romans and barbarians interacted in a multitude of ways, and it was not just barbarians who experienced "ethnogenesis" or cultural assimilation. The same Romans who disparaged barbarian behavior also adopted aspects of it in their everyday lives, providing graphic examples of the ambiguity and negotiation that characterized the integration of Romans and barbarians, a process that altered the concepts of identity of both populations. The resultant late antique polyethnic cultural world, with cultural frontiers between Romans and barbarians that became increasingly permeable in both directions, does much to help explain how the barbarian settlement of the west was accomplished with much less disruption than there might have been, and how barbarian populations were integrated seamlessly into the old Roman world.

Theoderic and the Roman Imperial Restoration offers a new interpretation of the fall of Rome and the "barbarian" successor state known as Ostrogothic Italy. Relying primarily on Italian textual and material evidence, Jonathan J. Arnold demonstrates that the subjects of the Ostrogothic kingdom viewed it as a revived Roman Empire and its king, Theoderic, as its emperor. Most accounts of Roman history end with the fall of Rome in 476 or see the Ostrogothic kingdom as a barbarous imitator. This book, however, challenges such views, placing the Theoderican epoch firmly within the continuum of Roman history.

Rhetoric is once again becoming valued as an essential element in the exploration of the ancient world. This volume is part of a general renaissance in the study of rhetoric and draws together established and newer scholars in the field to produce a probing and innovative analysis of the role played by rhetoric in Roman culture. Utilizing a variety of critical approaches and methodologies, the contributors examine not only the role of rhetoric in Roman society but also the relationship between rhetoric and Rome's major literary genres.RomanEloquenceemphasizes the theory and practice of rhetoric in a variety of social, political and literary contexts, and reveals the important role played by rhetoric in the formation of the various genres of literatures.