The evaluation of ‘genre’ as a heuristic category seems to have come more or less to rest at an equilibrium between the earlier extremes of total rejection and uncomplicated acceptance, as G. makes clear in his introduction to this stimulating and enjoyable edited volume. The existence of genres (or at least ‘generic’ horizons of expectation among the audiences) and the usefulness of the concept to the study of ancient literatures is given a balanced defence, while some of the challenges posed by dynamics such as hybridisation and metaphrastic processes are also addressed. This latest volume stemming from a ‘Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity’ conference (Ottawa, March 2013) offers through its 22 chapters a methodologically challenging and often admirably nuanced take on genre and its uses in late-antique scholarship.

Part 1 looks at ‘Homiletic and Disputation’. W. Maier studies the late-fourth century rise in medical metaphors and somatic imagery about the community of the religious in homiletic texts. What emerges is a convincing case of earlier ideas on health, soul and the medical theory being used creatively in forming a new kind of persuasive rhetoric often directed against ‘heretics’ and other ‘diseases’ of the confessional body. Adaptation of earlier rhetorical components is also crucial to T. Moreau's contribution, which interprets Ambrose of Milan's De obitu Theodosii as projecting – through its combination of consolatio, laudatio, exegesis and historical digression on the discovery of the True Cross – a new image of the imperial dynasty working in close connection with the ecclesiastical elite (primarily Ambrose himself). Changed political contexts could thus motivate new attempts at cross-generic experimentation.

Generic experimentation could also stem from the sheer volume of Christian literature being composed. This is suggested by C. Whiting's fine study of Jerome's De viris illustribus, a collection of summarised literary biographies which in Whiting's interpretation was not meant to convert pagans, but rather to provide something like the New York Review of Books for Jerome's peers: an aid for those who only had the time to read of the authors instead of their actual writings. Part 1 is brought to a close by Y.R. Kim's examination of the development of heresiological classification and knowledge ordering in Epiphanius' Panarion. Kim is able to cast new light upon Epiphanius' dependence on the classifications met in the ancient encyclopaedic writing, as well as the largely conceptual nature of the vocabulary of violence in many sections of the text.

Part 2, titled rather accommodatingly ‘Ecclesiastical Genres’, offers five case studies with potential for wider application. Tackling the generic characteristics and innovations in Liberatus of Carthage's Breviarium causae nestorianorum et eutychianorum, P. Blaudeau explores first the semantic field of breviarium in some detail, but on this basis is able to call convincingly into question the hegemony of the ‘Eusebian model’ of historiography. G. Dunn deconstructs the preconceptions often projected onto early papal decrees, and proposes a process of ‘decretalization’ of earlier material by subsequent collectors. Papal documents are also crucial to D.I. Viezure, who looks at the Collectio Avellana and produces a reasoned argument on what the internal structure of the collection can tell us of the political context(s) of its compilation – as opposed to the original drafting of the documents. É. Fournier's chapter on generic hybridisation in Victor of Vita's History of the Vandal Persecution contains several new suggestions for the understanding of this text that combines apologetics, hagiography and ecclesiastical history. S. Lunn-Rockliffe contributes a fascinating chapter on the devil as a motivator for action in the late-antique ecclesiastical histories, demonstrating in the process how transcending the scholarly compartmentalisations into ‘genres’, where necessary, can lead to particularly nuanced analysis.

Part 3, ‘Visual Genres’, broadens the horizons of the volume in a most welcome way by sketching out some cases of generic considerations in fields other than literature: not only is it well-situated in the midst of literary studies, but it moreover helps to modulate some of the assumptions about how a ‘genre’ works. M. Bodnaruk's thought-provoking exploration of the ‘dress ways’ and identity projection of the senators and the emperor himself under Constantine's rebranding of imperial power is followed by C. Doyle's numismatic study on the iconography of imperial victory during the fourth century. Both contributions are convincing despite certain problems in the representativeness of their samples; namely, the small numbers of senatorial statuary in the case of Bodnaruk, and the lack of coinage – and thus also depictions of victory ideology – from those usurpers who are interpreted as mere ‘rebels’ by Doyle. The third chapter in this part, by A. Christ, provides careful and nuanced assessment of the state of research into the diptych form, as well as several suggestions as to how we should reconstruct the audiences and aims of such an iconographic genre.

Part 4 delivers a very satisfying serving of Procopian studies in four chapters and with significant interlinkages. F. Montinaro compares the two redactions of Procopius' De Aedificiis, and is able to provide important additions to our understanding of this interesting text. C. Pazdernik focuses on the ‘Thucydideanising’ sections in Book 7 of the Wars, and demonstrates how the Procopian figure of Totila is presented in line with the ancient tradition of commenting on the appropriateness of Pericles' last speech as given by Thucydides. Chapter 15, by E. Turquois, synergises very well with Part 5 of the volume, examining as it does the aesthetics of technical writing in Procopius – whose technical ekphraseis achieve several different ends at the same time, and borrow from both the encyclopedic register and wonder-writing as well as the rhetorical progymnasmata. On many occasions the overriding aim, as so often in late-antique literature, seems to have been the provision of varietas. M. Kruse's impressive chapter provides a cross-generic reading of the different literary and legal manifestations of Justinian's renovatio-ideology, as well as the resistance this engendered in the literary elite; the main focus is on Zosimus and Jordanes.

Part 5 offers three case studies on the register of ‘technical writing’ in Late Antiquity, all with observations that are more broadly applicable to a wide range of texts under this accommodating umbrella term. C. Whately contextualises the late-antique military manuals very well as literary products, asks pertinent questions about their purpose and audience, and is able to suggest some intriguing possibilities by way of answer. C. Freu examines the contracts of servitude (locatio conductio) in Late Antiquity, and demonstrates that if we are able to assess the extent of legal traditionalism in the form of the contract, our ability to answer pressing questions on social conditions during this period is much improved. R.W. Mathisen's hugely interesting chapter engages with the sort of challenging ancient and modern terminology – in the ancient sources especially natio and gens, and among the modern terms ‘ethnicity’ and ‘identity’ – that would have benefited from being more clearly defined, but he manages to suggest new and innovative interpretations regarding the ‘ethnicisation’ of both internal and external population groups in the Later Roman Empire.

Part 6 comprises three important chapters on topics that address some of the gaps that such an ambitious theme for a conference almost unavoidably produces. S. Bjornlie's excellent and stimulating take on Cassiodorus' Variae demonstrates compellingly how this complex piece – varietas, again – of literary-cultural posturing and self-fashioning cannot be read straightforwardly as a source to the administration or identities of Ostrogothic Italy. S. Mariev, the editor of John of Antioch's fragments, addresses a vital question for the study of late-antique historiography by pointing out the generic considerations – or more properly, the lack thereof – in Byzantine characterisations of the chronicle form. The last chapter, E. Watts' concise and eloquent case study of Himerius' monody on the death of his son Rufinus, closes the thematic circle of the volume by returning to the rhetorical register.