Image and Authority: how presentation affected leadership in the ancient world

Image and Authority: how presentation affected leadership in the ancient world

University of Birmingham

Friday 30 May

The question of how people lead in the ancient world has recently seen a renewed scholarly focus, especially with regard to the Roman world (for example, Frolov and Burden-Strevens 2022; Becker et al. 2024). These studies, for the most part, focus on the processes a leader undertakes to lead others. However, for any of these processes to be effective, both the leader and the led must maintain some agreement on the scope over which the leader has authority. This highlights the importance of the leader’s presentation to their ability to lead: how do leaders in the ancient world present themselves, and how to others present them? How do these presentations facilitate or constrain the leader’s ability to operate as a leader?

The University of Birmingham is hosting a one-day workshop organised by Tyler Broome (University of Birmingham) and Jurriaan Gouw (University of Warwick) to consider the relationship between the presentation of a leader and their capacity to lead. The workshop will comprise a series of 20 minute papers (plus 10 minutes for questions and discussion after each paper), followed by an hour-long roundtable discussion of the overarching themes of image and leadership which emerge from these papers. Following this, we will have a keynote presentation from Dr Christopher Burden-Strevens (University of Kent).

We invite the submission of abstracts (max. 300 words) which address one or more of the following research questions:

1.      How does a leader’s presentation (either self-created or attributed by others) enable or constrain their ability to act in a leadership capacity?

2.      How do various theoretical approaches enable us to critically examine the relationship between image presentation and leadership?

3.      In what ways can the study of the intersection between leader presentation and leadership deepen our understanding of social and political conduct in the ancient world?

4.      How does the construction of the image of past leaders influence the presentation and behaviour of other leaders?

We encourage submissions from any place or period relating to ancient world studies up to and including Late Antiquity. Moreover, we are aiming to encompass as broad a range of theoretical approaches as possible, which will be discussed in the roundtable meeting, and so we encourage submissions from a range of methodologies and fields, including top-down or bottom-up approaches, and studies of various data sets such as literature, numismatics, art, oratory, and epigraphy.

Our intended focus for this workshop is to develop a network of postgraduate and early career researchers with an interest in the effects of leaders’ depictions on their leadership. We are hoping for the majority of our presenters to attend in person. As such, we are currently looking into the possibility of a small travel subsidy; however, if this is not possible we will offer a hybrid option for the presentations. If this is a necessity, please indicate as such along with your submission.

Please send any abstracts (along with your name, affiliated institution, and stage of study) or enquiries to Tyler Broome at tjb206@student.bham.ac.uk before Friday January 31st, 2025.