Introduction

The Introduction first defines the book’s understanding of “becoming lost” and identifies some Latin words that assist in isolating the motif in Republican verse (error/errare, vagus/vagari, etc.). It then turns to the fragmentary Latin poets before Plautus in whose work the theme occurs, namely, Livius Andronicus and Naevius, to show that one can trace the poetic figuration of becoming lost in the geographical regions of Roman power back to the earliest surviving Latin verse and the earliest moments of Roman overseas expansion. Next, in place of the usual chapter-by-chapter summary, the introduction outlines a series of precedents in Greek myth and literature, as well as in actual lived experience, for the poetic narratives that the individual chapters treat in more detail. Finally, the chapter lays out the modern theoretical assumptions with which the whole book is in dialogue. For the terms “disorientation,” “queerness,” and indeed the phrase “getting lost,” the whole book is indebted above all to Sarah Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. For Ahmed, queerness is an effect of disorientation understood in terms of empire, as empire bears upon the construction of sexuality and other aspects of identity. Ahmed’s work, in turn, draws upon a strain of postcolonial theory that has become important (and contested) within historical, archaeological, and literary Roman-empire studies since the turn of the twenty-first century. The Introduction thus concludes by articulating pertinent connections between Ahmed, postcolonial theory, and the scholarship on Rome.

Colony and Empire, Colonialism and Imperialism: A Meaningful Distinction?

Colony and empire, colonialism and imperialism, are often treated as synonyms.This can be acceptable for many purposes. But there may be also good reasons to distinguish between them. This article considers in detail one important attempt in that direction by the classicist Moses Finley. It argues that there is considerable strength in that approach, putting the stress as it does on the distinctiveness of the settler community. It is also valuable in suggesting that early-modern Western colonialism marked a new departure in an older history of imperialism, thus once again suggesting the need for a conceptual separation of the two. But the article concludes that ultimately more may be lost than gained by insisting on the distinction. In particular, it inhibits wide-ranging comparisons between ancient and modern, and Western and non-Western, empires, which can often suggest illuminating connections and parallels. The field of empire studies gains by drawing on the rich store of examples provided by the whole history of empire, from the earliest times to now. Western colonialism is part of that story; to separate it out is to impoverish the field.

Ethnicity as a category of imperial racialization: What do race and empire studies offer to Romanian studies?

This article argues that the category of indigenous Romanian, which was articulated at the end of the 18th century can be better understood as a product of imperial racialization. Building on Katherine Verdery’s work, I analyze the production of the Romanian indigeneity within the context of imperial rivalries in the Habsburg empire. In doing so, I critically investigate the impact of Benedict Anderson’s theory of nationalism in Romanian studies, given that it introduced a sharp distinction between ethnicity and race. My argument opens up two new conceptual routes. On the one hand, it suggests a line of investigation comparing the formation of Romanian ethnicity with debates about white racial identity in North America. On the other hand, it makes visible the exclusion of Roma ethnicity from narratives about the origin of Romanianness. I conclude by drawing on larger consequences regarding, not only the question of race and stereotypes, but also by looking at the global process of forming the distinction between the indigenous and the foreign migrant.

John’s Writings and Empire

In contrast to Johannine scholarship’s predominant focus on the religious and spiritual aspects of Johannine literature, empire studies examine the Roman presence in John’s writings or the ways the text negotiates imperial power. These studies generally argue that John employs counter-imperial rhetoric to resist the empire or disrupt accommodationist interactions with imperial power. Since identifying John’s Gospel as a resistant discourse (e.g., high christology) can reinscribe Christian superiority, postcolonial studies pay more attention to the colonial or imperializing rhetoric in John that creates the hierarchical order and marginalization of others. Such postcolonial studies examine power relations at work in the text and in their own geopolitical contexts from a resistant, ambivalent, or decolonial position. This essay suggests that empire-critical and postcolonial studies of John’s writings engage the material matrix of the text and its cultural production, a non-binary mode of interpretation focusing on postcolonial texts borne out of liberation struggles, and intersectional analyses of imperial-(post)colonial formations.

The Apocryphal Acts of Thomas and Empire

This chapter argues that studies on the Apocryphal Acts of Thomas tend toward Eurocentrism in ignoring the anti-imperial discourse that underlies heresy and fiction. Some of the main questions discussed are why prioritizing the Roman Empire when examining the early Christian period is problematic, how empire studies modify heresiology, and why the relationship between the Apocryphal text and the community of Thomas Christians of India deserves to be reexamined against the biases of modern-day research, especially when such research is overdetermined by imperial discourse. The chapter contributes to the study of literature and religion and Eastern Christianity in the post-colonial era.

Gender and Sexuality in Postcolonial Perspective

This chapter analyzes postcolonial biblical criticism as it emerged out of liberation theology, empire studies, and postcolonial theory. It argues that this convergence of disparate theoretical and disciplinary genealogies is what gives postcolonial biblical studies its unique appearance. It then turns to the place of gender and sexuality in postcolonial readings of the New Testament, exploring ways in which such readings both rely on and critique feminist and queer hermeneutics. The chapter highlights some prominent examples and discusses future challenges for scholars engaged in this approach. An extended case study of the problem of anti-Judaism in postcolonial feminist biblical scholarship illustrates key methodological challenges but also new interpretive possibilities.