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

Author: Christine Shepardson
Author info: Associate Professor of Religious Studies
Publication Date: April 2014
Publisher: University of California Press
Synopsis: From constructing new buildings to describing rival-controlled areas as morally and physically dangerous, leaders in late antiquity fundamentally shaped their physical environment and thus the events that unfolded within it. This book maps the city of Antioch (Antakya, Turkey) through the topographically sensitive vocabulary of cultural geography, demonstrating the critical role played by physical and rhetorical spatial contests during the tumultuous fourth century. Paying close attention to the manipulation of physical places, Shepardson exposes some of the powerful forces that structured the development of religious orthodoxy and orthopraxy in the late Roman Empire.