100 Years of Solitude: Roman colonies in the first century of their foundation

The School of Classics, University of St Andrews will hold a conference in St Andrews from the 12th to 14th September 2007 which concerns the nature of Roman colonies in the provinces during the first 100 years after their foundation. In recent years significant developments have been made in research on processes of change in the colonies of the Empire but the geographical exclusivity means that there has been little dialogue on common themes between those who work on the East and those on the West.

The purpose of the conference is to take a new approach to the study of the Roman Empire which allows scholars of both the Eastern and Western provinces come together to present papers on a range of issues and material culture concerning colonies within the first 100 years of their foundation. By focusing the discussion on the early years of colonies but by eliminating the geographical divide it is hoped that a number of issues will be resolved and that new material will be provided for future research! A short synopsis of the themes is included for further information.

At the moment it is envisaged there will be a programme of between 25 and 30 papers on the themes outlined in the enclosed synopsis (below). If you wish to attend the conference or to participate by presenting a 20 minute research paper, please register your interest in doing so by 12th December 2006 at the address or email address below. In your initial correspondence, please include your name, addresses and if you propose to give a paper, a provisional title.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch should you have any questions or comments and feel free to circulate the information to any of your colleagues who might also be interested.


CONTACT:

Dr Rebecca Sweetman
School of Classics
University St Andrews
Swallowgate
St Andrews
KY16 9AL, Scotland

rs43@st-andrews.ac.uk
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/classics/conferences/index.shtml

Fax: +44 1334 462602



Synopsis:
100 Years of Solitude: Roman colonies in the first century of their foundation

Research on the nature of cultural change in the Roman Empire has traditionally been divided between the Western and Eastern provinces. In all cases, whether discussion is couched in terms of Romanization, Creolization or Globalization explanations for the processes of change are focused on discrete areas of the Empire using specific elements of material culture or historical sources as evidence. This geographical exclusivity and fragmentation has lead to a poor understanding both of the global processes of how the Roman Empire spread and the effects of the expanding Empire on the provinces themselves. Although both sides of the geographical divide are aware of these problems, they have yet to be addressed.

The aim of this conference is to reunite Eastern and Western provinces by approaching the question of cultural change in provinces across the Empire through a range of material culture and historical sources. The conference aims to bring together archaeologists and historians concerned with provinces of both the Eastern and the Western Empire in the hope that a better understanding of the development of the Empire as a whole may be achieved. Since a primary goal is an understanding of the nature of cultural development, the focus will be on an examination of a range of material culture dating from the first one hundred years of the foundation of a colony. Key questions may include:

· Why were certain cities selected to be colonies?
· For whose benefit was the colony established?
· How did cities respond when they became colonies of the Roman Empire?
· How was the change to colony-status articulated in material culture?
· If there was a perceptible change, what was the time frame of that change?
· Is there evidence of non-intentional or intentional change (or both) on the part of the locals and/or the Romans?
· Can an interpretation of the material culture of different colonies from different parts of the Empire tell the same story?

Ultimately, a more inclusive approach should allow an examination of both local and Roman perspectives and show that the foundation and development of a colony are not homogenous processes.

Pollution and Propriety: DIRT, DISEASE, AND HYGIENE IN ROME FROM
ANTIQUITY TO MODERNITY

A two-day conference at the British School at Rome,
Thursday 21 and Friday 22 June 2007.

Keynote speaker: Professor Mary Douglas

This interdisciplinary conference will examine the significance of
pollution and cleanliness in the art, literature, philosophy, and
material culture of the city of Rome from antiquity through to the
twentieth century. Dirt, disease and pollution and the ways they are
represented and policed have long been recognised by historians and
anthropologists to occupy a central position in the formulation of
cultural identity, and Rome holds a special status in the West as a city
intimately associated with issues of purity, decay, ruin and renewal. In
recent years, scholarship in a variety of disciplines has begun to
scrutinise the less palatable features of the archaeology, history and
society of Rome. This research has drawn attention to the city's
distinctive historical interest in the recognition, isolation and
treatment of pollution, and the ways in which politicians, architects,
writers and artists have exploited this as a vehicle for devising
visions of purity and propriety.

As a departure point, then, the organisers propose the theme of
'Pollution and Propriety' and the discourses by which these two
antagonistic concepts are related. How has pollution in Rome been
defined, and by what means is it controlled? How does Rome's own social
and cultural history affect the way states of dirt and cleanliness are
formulated? Does purity always accompany political, physical or social
change? Does Rome's reputation as a 'city of ruins' determine how it is
represented? What makes images of decay in Rome so picturesque? It is
hoped that this conference will bring together scholars from a range of
disciplines who are interested in dirt, disease and hygiene in Rome in
order to examine the historical continuity of these themes and to
explore their development and transformation alongside major chapters in
the city's history, such as early Roman urban development, the Roman
Empire, early Christianity, decline and fall, the Renaissance, the
Unification of Italy, and the advent of Fascism. Papers might include,
but are certainly not limited to:

* Death and burial
* The history of medicine in Rome
* Slavery and social pollution
* Gendering dirt
* Sexuality and virginity
* Queerness and pollution
* Public and private morality
* Decay, decline and fall
* Architectural unity and purity
* Sewers and waste disposal; water supply
* Urban segregation
* The management and representation of disease
* Religions, purity and absolution
* Bodies, purging and beautification
* Ruins and renovation
* Pollution as literary metaphor
* Modernity as pollution


It is hoped that this conference will be of interest to scholars working
in archaeology, cultural history, literature, art history, and the
history of medicine, and the organisers would be grateful if classicists
could alert colleagues in other disciplines to whom this conference may
be of interest. The conference will aim to develop themes in the history
of the city of Rome, as well as providing a context for examining
general issues of pollution and purity. Papers will last approximately
20 minutes; they should be original and should have not been previously
published or delivered at a major conference. Abstracts of approximately
200 words should be submitted by November 30, 2006. Successful
contributions may be considered for publication in a conference volume.


Organisers: Dr Mark Bradley (Classics, Nottingham)
Prof Richard Wrigley (Art History, Nottingham)

Email: pollution.conference@nottingham.ac.uk



Confirmed classical speakers include:

Elaine Fantham (Classics, Princeton) - pollution and purification in
Roman ritual

Gemma Jansen (Archaeology, Nijmegen) - divinities in Roman
toilet-paintings

Penelope Davies (Art History, Austin) - pollution and urban development
in Republican Rome

Robert Arnott (History of Medicine, Birmingham) - the Antonine plague



Dr Mark Bradley
Lecturer in Ancient History
Department of Classics,
University of Nottingham,
University Park
Nottingham NG7 2RD

Office C.4

Tel. +44 (0) 115 95 14814
Int. 14814

CFP: 'Pollution and Propriety: dirt, disease and hygiene in Rome from
antiquity to modernity'
An international, interdisciplinary conference to be held at the British
School at Rome, 21-22 June 2007
For further details, see:
http://www.bsr.ac.uk/BSR/sub_news/extra/BSR_News_lectures_Papers03.htm

[Classicists]

Call for Proposals for “The Oral, The Written, and Other Verbal Media: Interfaces and Audiences”: A Conference and Festival

University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, June 19-21, 2008

The organizers of the first international, interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and trans-historical conference and festival focusing on the interface of the oral and the written invite proposals for participation. In keeping with the plenitude of modes and forms of oral and textual discourse, the organizers will welcome diverse modes of presentation, including, but not limited to, oral performances, academic talks and panels, readers’ theatre (dramatized readings of scholarly

dialogues), workshops, and projects-in-progress sessions. Our goal is to generate conversations among performers, audiences, and scholars, including graduate students, from a wide range of academic disciplines, cultures, and historical periods, and to foster opportunities for collaboration among those interested in speech and other voicings on the page. Because Saskatoon is located in a territory highly populated with Indigenous peoples whose oral traditions are still vital and developing, the festival will highlight Aboriginal performers in a Crow Hop Café featuring storytelling, Indigenous Hip Hop, music, and other oral performances. Are you studying legal contracts in medieval Europe as they move from the oral to the written, or Indigenous treaty narratives from decolonizing parts of the world? Are you asking what happens to oral stories when they are transmuted into fiction, drama, printed poetry, or visual media? Are you trying to reconstruct the oral delivery of sermons or epics on the basis of their printed forms? Are you working with Elders on the transcription of oral narratives, and would you like to discuss successes and obstacles in a workshop with others engaged or interested in this sort of work? Are you an oral storyteller/keeper or dub or spoken word poet interested in talking about your practice with scholars? Do you have other ideas for workshops related to the conference and festival theme? If you see your work reflected in these or related questions, please contact us. Other issues and topics that might be addressed:

• aesthetics, ethics, & politics at the interface of the oral & the written

• the body &/or gender at the interface of the oral & the written

• contesting writing’s empire

• memory and commemoration at the interface of the oral and the written

• oral occasions, contexts, circumstances & modes of public address as represented in writing

• oral and written poetics & modes of meaning-making

• orality, textuality, & authority; orality, textuality, & modernity

• orature, writing, and genre: sacred narratives, proverbs, jokes, ballads, sagas, legends, folklore, sermons, oratory, & disputations

• recording oral narratives for community histories or school curriculum

• translation/transcreation of orature

• the oral and the written in visual arts

• strategies for textualizing the oral

• what audiences are well or ill served by textualizing the oral



Please forward inquiries and proposals (300-500 words) by 31 December 2006 to either of

Professor Susan Gingell

Department of English

University of Saskatchewan

Saskatoon, SK Canada S7N 5A5

sag178@mail.usask.ca



Professor Neal Mcleod

Department of Indigenous Studies

First People's House of Learning

Peter Gzowski College

Enweying Building

1600 West Bank Drive

Peterborough, ON K9J 7B8

nealmcleod@trentu.ca


[CCB]

University of Windsor Classics Undergraduate Conference 2007

Call for Abstracts


The Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures in conjunction with the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Humanities Research Group at the University of Windsor is pleased to sponsor its second annual Classics Undergraduate Conference to be held on Friday, March 9 and Saturday, March 10, 2007. The conference will open on Friday with a keynote speech by Dr. Mark Golden of the University of Winnipeg entitled “Greek Games and Gladiators”.

Undergraduate majors in Classics or related fields are invited to submit abstracts of 300 words maximum for a 15 to 20 minute talk on any aspect of ancient Greece or Rome. Please include name and address as well as a phone number or e-mail address with the submission, which is to be made to Dr. Max Nelson (who can be contacted by e-mail at mnelson@uwindsor.ca). The deadline for the receipt of abstracts is January 31, 2007 and notification of acceptance will be provided by February 15, 2007. Please note that a stipend of up to $500 per speaker may be available to defray the cost of travel and/or lodging. Requests to receive a stipend will be entertained once the notifications of acceptance have been sent out.

[CCB]

18th Annual UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University
Graduate Colloquium in Classics
April 7, 2007
Possessing Knowledge:
Archiving, Collecting, and Displaying in the Ancient World
Keynote Speaker: Professor Richard Janko,
University of Michigan.

The ancient world was alive with archives, collections, and displays. The library at Alexandria reveals a fascination not only with recording the past, but also with organizing and displaying it. Although this library remains the most famous example, it was only one of a number of public archives, along with the Didascaliae in Athens, the consular lists in Rome, and the library within the Baths of Caracalla. The practice of maintaining private libraries flourished in the Roman world, as did other forms of collection: private sculpture gardens, precious stones, and exotic building materials. These material collections spoke silently but powerfully about their owners. Other collections, such as treasuries and inscriptions stored at sanctuaries, tell us not only about the desire to project a particular image, but also about the need of communities to record and publish distinctive events in their history.

The UNC-Duke 2007 Graduate Colloquium in Classics will explore the logistics behind and ramifications of collections in the ancient world. We welcome papers that will engage long-standing problems, challenge accepted viewpoints, and expand our knowledge about the creation and impact of archives, collections, and exhibits on all areas of classical civilization.

Possible topics include:

. Political and/or ideological motivations behind collecting
. Grave goods as collections
. Process of archiving and the physical organization of collections in the ancient world
. The impact of the collection and exchange of manuscripts or works of art in the ancient world and beyond
. Virtues and vices to understanding the history of religion as a process of collection and assimilation
. Building assemblages (e.g. the Acropolis) as collections of architectural, sacred, and political history
. The degree to which the modern understanding of the classical world has been influenced by our own practices of collection, organization, and ownership

We invite graduate students to submit a one page abstract via email to Alex Loney at alexander.loney@duke.edu along with the applicant's name, home institution, and department. Abstracts should be received no later than January 15, 2007.

Three sessions of an International Congress on Textual Criticism of
ancient Greek authors will be held at the University of Extremadura in
Cáceres, Spain, on June 7-9, 2007. One-page abstracts for 20-minutes
papers relating to the following topics are invited: textual criticism
and
transmission of Greek authors, the editing of Greek texts, and
methodological problems or procedures relating to textual criticism at
large.

Keynote speakers will be:

Alberto Bernabé (Madrid): "Problemas de edición de textos fragmentarios:
el caso de los órficos."

Esteban Calderón (Murcia): "La tradición indirecta en la crítica
textual griega."

Manuela García Valdés (Oviedo): "Editar a Eliano: problemas que
plantea."

Alexander F. Garvie (Glasgow): "Textual Problems in the Greek Tragedy as
Applied to Aeschylus' Persae."

Felipe Hernández Muñoz (Madrid): "Treinta años de crítica textual
griega:
cuestiones abiertas."

Georg Luck (Johns Hopkins): "Verbum Divinum per Manus Hominum: Some
Textual Problems in he New Testament."

Franco Montanari (Genova): "Ekdosis alessandrina: il libro e il testo."
John R. Morgan (Swansea): "Recent editions of the ancient Greek novels."

Bryan Reardon (California, Irvine)

Abstracts should be forwarded, preferably by email, to Professors Manuel
Sanz Morales (msanz@unex.es) and Miryam Librán Moreno (mlibmor@unex.es).
Deadline for receipt of abstracts is Feb. 15, 2007. Please note that
there
will be no travel funding available for participants, and that the
submission of an abstract carries with it a commitment to attend the
conference should the abstract be accepted.

Registration fees are as follows:

Registration fees paid until March 15, 2007: (1) 25 ? for scholars who
wish to attend the sessions without presenting a paper. Please note that
registration fees for scholars who wish to attend the sessions without
presenting a paper will increase to 30 ? after March 16, 2007. (2) 50 ?
for scholars who submit and present a paper.

Registration fees paid after March 16, 2007 and until May 15, 2007: 80 ?
for scholars who submit and present a paper.

For more information on the registration process, please contact
Professor
Manuel Sanz Morales (msanz@unex.es) or Professor Miryam Librán Moreno
(mlibmor@unex.es).

The International Congress on Textual Criticism of Greek authors will be
sponsored by the Sociedad Española de Estudios Clásicos (SEEC) and the
European Society for Textual Scholarship (ESTS).

Conference on Universal History: call for papers

Manchester, June 21-2, 2007.

A mode of the utmost value to those who are studiously inclined (Diodorus
Siculus 1.3.6)

Universal History is a type of history that attempts to explain the world beyond
the immediate surroundings of the author. It reflects a desire to synthesise
the mass of written and oral knowledge about the past and perhaps to introduce
a systematic interpretation. The purpose of this conference is to re-examine
the notion of Universal Historiography with a focus on its appearance in the
Greek and Roman world. Our attention will be directed not only at those
historians well-established as practitioners of Universal Historiography
(Ephorus, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Pompeius Trogus, Velleius Paterculus,
Ammianus Marcellinus etc.), we also welcome interpretations of other historians
and ancient writers as Universal Historiographers and their employment of ideas
and concepts familiar to Universal Historiography. We will be open to papers
(30 mins) on any aspect of the subject, in particular definitions, the
evidential basis, content and form, the intellectual context and reception of
the subject. While this conference will focus on antiquity (600BC - AD600)
proposals for papers are welcomed from other periods; we are particularly
interested in the impact that ancient concepts of Universal Historiography on
its later manifestations.

For more information, contact Andy Fear (andrew.fear@manchester.ac.uk) and Peter
Liddel (peter.liddel@manchester.ac.uk).

[seen on the Classicists list]

La revue internationale Phoenix, organe de la Société canadienne des études classiques, publie en anglais et en français des articles de chercheurs canadiens ou étrangers et souhaite encourager tout particulièrement l'envoi d'articles en langue française. Toute contribution scientifique originale touchant un domaine de l'Antiquité grecque ou romaine, des origines à l'époque tardive (env. 600 apr. J.-C.), notamment la littérature et la philologie, l'histoire et la civilisation, la philosophie, l'art et l'archéologie, sera examinée avec bienveillance par le comité de rédaction. Prière d'adresser toute correspondance à: PHOENIX, Trinity College, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1H8, Canada, ou à l'adresse électronique suivante: phoenix@chass.utoronto.ca.

Pour la rédaction,

Benjamin VICTOR
Centre d'études classiques
Université de Montréal
C.P. 6128, succ. Centre-Ville
Montréal (Québec) H3C 3J7
Canada
514/343 7941 (tél.)
514/343 2347 (fax)

[seen on various lists]

Epicurean Movements: Translating and Transporting Ancient Materialism
American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting, Puebla,
Mexico, April 19-22, 2007

Epicureanism, perhaps the most famous brand of ancient materialism, has
long been on the move: indeed, its father, Epicurus, is said to have
founded branches of his school in the eastern Aegean area before making
the decisive move to Athens, where he founded the Garden. In other
words, unlike Platonism, Stoicism, or other major philosophies of the
day, Epicureanism immigrated into the philosophical center of the
Greek-speaking world. Since that day, Epicureanism and its pesky brand
of materialism have been translated and transported across countless
borders. During antiquity, Epicureanism wandered to Rome, where its
most famous expositor, Lucretius, thematized the very problem of its
translation: ??it is difficult to illuminate the murky discoveries of
Greeks, especially since much must be done with new language on account
of the poverty of our tongue and the novelty of the subject?? (DRN
1.136-39).

This seminar seeks to investigate, in a broad fashion, problems of the
reception, translation, and transmission of Epicurean thought through
Rome and down to the modern world: how, that is, has the material
transmission of this brand of ancient materialism variously impacted
its understanding? Epicureanism has a particular history of being
?ec-centric,? not only in geographic terms but also in its antagonistic
relationship to many of the classical, philosophical norms of antiquity
and later times: one hope is that the seminar will provoke thinking
about Epicurean wandering in relation to this ec-centricity. Why,
throughout its transmission, has Epicureanism been unable to shake this
?outside? position, first symbollically inaugurated by its founder?s
philosophical devisings so far from Athens?

Participants are invited and encouraged to consider this problematic in
diverse guises: we hope to study the reception of Epicureanism in Rome,
during the Enlightenment, during Victorian times, and in the modern
world. Given the particular emphasis of the conference, it would be
fitting, too, to explore the (less well-known) reception of
Epicureanism into the Americas.

The deadline for submissions is November 1, 2006. Paper submissions
for 15-20 min. talks are invited and may be submitted in abstract at
the conference website: http://acla2007.complit.ucla.edu/.

Questions about this seminar may be directed to Will Shearin
(zephyrus@berkeley.edu ) or Brooke Holmes (baholmes@email.unc.edu).

[seen on the Classicists list]

"Lucian and His Times" - University of Kent, Canterbury, 24-25 March 2007.

Lucian of Samosata left us not only with a body of work that gives us a keen
insight into the reception of literature from the Archaic, Classical and
Hellenistic periods in the 2nd century AD, but also left behind works that
can give us a deeper view into the vibrant and diverse culture and society
of his own times. This conference will focus on what Lucian has to say to us
about the Empire of the Second Sophistic period, contemporary social trends
and the nature of non-Roman language and culture at that time.

Professor Heinz-Günther Nesselrath of the Georg-August Universität,
Göttingen will be the keynote speaker, with the theme "A tale of two cities:
Lucian on Athens and Rome". It is expected that most papers will be 20
minutes in length, but longer presentations will also be accommodated. The
organisers welcome papers that discuss the use of Lucian's writing in
historical, archaeological, linguistic and literary research.

Submissions and queries can be forwarded by email to Dr Adam Bartley at
ab290@kent.ac.uk.

[seen on the Classicists list]