Christy Q. Schirmer
Fishing in the Rivers of the Roman Empire

Rivers were a valuable resource in antiquity and would have been a reliable source of fish and other fauna, representing an important feature of local economies. However, river fishing is largely unaddressed by the ancient literary sources and is difficult to assess in the archaeological record, so its particulars have remained something of a mystery to scholars. Drawing on documentary texts, artifacts, zooarchaeological material, and other evidence to fill in the gaps, Christy Q. Schirmer’s project examines how different communities managed their freshwater resources, balancing local food traditions with increasingly complex economic and cultural entanglements with Rome. This presentation shares some of that research in progress, exploring different ways to shine a light on “invisible” trades like ancient fishing, and in turn to better understand this component of ancient daily life.

Christy Q. Schirmer is the Millicent Mercer Johnsen/Irene Rosenzweig Rome Prize Fellow in Ancient Studies and a PhD candidate in the Department of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin.

Paulette Marie Singley
Intercenales or Table Talk: Stories about Rome and Gastronomy

What might stories concerning food teach us about Rome’s urban fabric, architectural history, and intangible cultural heritage? This presentation explores the alimentary history and foodways of a simple Roman dinner, adopting an historical methodology that begins with a culinary subject and concludes with larger observations concerning spatial politics, cultural memory, and minor architectures. The proposed dinner follows the conventional Italian meal sequence of bread (pane), appetizer (antipasto), first course (primo), second course (secondo), and dessert (dolce). In an effort to slice through the city’s compelling culinary stratigraphy, the meal is set upon the conceptual table of Rome’s urban fabric, yielding conversations that bore into ancient, medieval, baroque, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century gastronomic transformations of the city.

Paulette Marie Singley is the Adele Chatfield-Taylor Rome Prize Fellow in Historic Preservation and Conservation and a professor in the Department of Architecture at Woodbury University.

The shoptalks will be held in English.

Video is not available for Christy Q. Schirmer’s presentation.