2008 Annual Public Lecture

19 November 2008

19 November 2008

4-6pm

Room 2.03 Humanities Building

Professor Jonathan Wooding (University of Wales, Lampeter)

Nativism and the "Late-Antiquity Paradigm" in Early Celtic Studies

Abstract: The extent of the indigenous contribution to Christian culture is a controversial topic. That distinctive elements in early Irish and British Christianity are taken over from pre-Christian culture is a common assumption, though the 'ant-nativist' critique of the twentieth century showed many of these 'native' elements to be illusory. The lecture will address the problems of the anti-nativist critique and their implications for wider religious issues than the literary motifs that debate has chiefly centred upon.