From the Editor

In place of the usual editor’s comments, we have in this issue a report on the last SLA-sponsored Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity conference provided by conference organizer, and one of our JLA Book Review Editors, Michael Kulikowski:

“The Ninth Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity conference took place at Penn State University from June 22–25, 2011. The meeting was held in conjunction with the International Network for the Study of Late Antiquity (ILAN) and the conference focused on Shifting Political Frontiers in Late Antiquity. Four days of papers ranged from questions of political ritual and public debate, through considerations of key events in the politics of the fourth and fifth centuries, administrative and governmental innovations of the later empire, and the representations of political authority in late antique visual culture. Other papers considered the ways in which we can read political cultures from the material record and how religious authority interacted with secular authority on the political stage. Hartmut Leppin of the Goethe Universität, Frankfurt, gave the first plenary lecture, on “Justin and Justinian,” arguing that we should not see the reign of Justin as an early precursor of Justinian’s reign, but read it in its own light, allocating a much stronger role to the old emperor. Simon Corcoran, of University College, London, gave the second plenary, “Shifting Fragments: Making Sense of New and Old Evidence for the Gregorian Code and its Context,” which introduced the audience to the problems and novel discoveries associated with the recently identified papyrus fragments of the Gregorian Code from the time of Diocletian. The conference provided an opportunity for participants to discuss the future of international collaboration in late antique fields, through both Shifting Frontiers and ILAN meetings. The next Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity conference will be held at the University of Ottawa in 2013.”

And finally, once more I encourage our readers to continue not only to submit their scholarship for publication and to encourage colleagues and libraries to subscribe to JLA (http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_late_antiquity/).