Women Writers and the Classical Tradition

Organized by Laura McClure, University of Wisconsin, and Yopie Prins, University of Michigan

On the absence of a literary tradition for female writers, Virginia Woolf once remarked, "For we think back through our mothers if we are women."  This process involves not only the recovery of neglected female writers, but also the re-examination of the male literary tradition from a feminist perspective.  Like many other women writers, Woolf repeatedly, and often paradoxically, returned to the classical past as a source of inspiration and as a means of reframing the literary agenda.

The Women's Classical Caucus invites abstracts for its panel session at the Montreal meeting of the American Philological Association in 2006.  This session will focus on the ways in which the classical past inspired or engaged the minds of nineteenth- and twentieth-century British and American women writers.  Topics that might be addressed include the influence of classical mythology on women writers, "ladies' Greek" or the study of classical languages by women, the importance of Euripides for the suffragettes, travel narratives about ancient monuments and sites, and the use of classical models in modernist poetry.

For more information on the panel, please contact the panel organizers, Laura McClure (lmcclure@facstaff.wisc.edu) or Yopie Prins (yprins@umich.edu).  Abstracts may be up to 600 words in length and should not contain the author's name, as they will be refereed anonymously.  Send by February 1, 2005 to lmcclure@facstaff.wisc.edu.    Abstracts sent by regular mail should be postmarked by February 1, 2005, and addressed to Laura McClure, Classics, University of Wisconsin, 1220 Linden Drive, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706.

... seen on Anahita-l

::Sunday, January 16, 2005 10:44:15 AM::

Latest headlines from YLE's Nuntii Latini:

Auxilium in Asiam mittitur (14.1.2005)

De collegio cognitorum cladis (14.1.2005)

Abbas novus praesidens electus (14.1.2005)

Bellum in Sudania compositum (14.1.2005)

Tempestas hiemalis saeviit (14.1.2005)

Recitatio

::Sunday, January 16, 2005 10:36:49 AM::

Latest headlines from Akropolis World News (in Classical Greek, natch):

Prague major, disguised as tourist, cheated by taxi drivers - Italian politicians encourage disobedience to anti-smoke law

Sharon congratulates Abbas on win - Statue reveals ancient astronomy

::Sunday, January 16, 2005 10:34:21 AM::

ROMAN LAW DOUBLE BILL

A "Roman law double bill" will be held on Wednesday 26 January 2005 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. in P101 in the School of Classics (Parkinson Building).

The speakers are:

3-4.30 p.m.
Professor John Ramsey
University of Illinois at Chicago
Runaway Jury:  Mark Antony's Crippling of the Criminal Courts and their Restoration by Augustus" (abstract below)

4.30-6 p.m.
Professor Jill Harries
University of St Andrews
"Cicero, Law and Community"

Please let Professor Robert Maltby know if you would like to dine with the speakers afterwards (r.maltby@leeds.ac.uk). 

Dominic Berry

Dr D.H.Berry
The School of Classics, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

Tel. (0113) 343 3539 (direct); fax. (0113) 343 3554
Web page:  http://www.leeds.ac.uk/classics

::Sunday, January 16, 2005 10:26:24 AM::

Georgia Clarke, Roman House - Renaissance Palaces. Inventing Antiquity in Fifteenth-Century Italy.

Kathryn Stoddard, The Narrative Voice in the Theogony of Hesiod. Mnemosyne Suppl. 255.

Dietmar Najock, Statistischer Schlüssel zum Vokabular in Vergils Eklogen, Alpha-Omega Reihe A vol. CLXXVII.

Donato Loscalzo, La parola inestenguibile. Studi sull'epinicio pindarico.

::Sunday, January 16, 2005 10:25:29 AM::

::Sunday, January 16, 2005 10:22:40 AM::

The Age has an interesting piece on the history behind the cup awarded for the Australian Open:

Each year, when the winner of the Australian Open receives his cup, I wonder if players and spectators are aware of the extraordinary history of the object of which it is a reduced copy.

The Australian Open cup (the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup) is a reduced silver version of the Warwick Vase, one of the most famous antiquities of the 18th century, which caught the imagination of the world and which was reproduced countless times. The original Warwick Vase is made of marble, and is a colossal scale, standing three metres high.

In 1778 the British Ambassador to the court of Naples, Sir William Hamilton, sold it to his relative, the Earl of Warwick.

It remained at Warwick Castle, north of London, for more than 200 years. In 1978 the castle was bought by the Tussauds Group in London and some of the greatest works of art also sold.

In 1979 the vase was bought by the trustees of the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, and there it remains. But the story of how the vase was excavated and made its way to England, is worth telling.

In Rome in 1760, a Scottish painter called Gavin Hamilton (no relation), although forgotten today, invented a new Neo-Classical style of painting that had a great influence on French artists later in the century.

Hamilton had to rely on art dealing and excavating antiquities to make a living. In 1769, while excavating part of the site of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, near Rome, he found among many broken statues dug from the grounds a large number of fragments of what had once been a colossal decorative vase, probably made for the Emperor Hadrian.

Hamilton sold these fragments to the famous engraver Piranesi, who got around the problem that the neo-classical taste of the day valued perfection, and if something was damaged or broken, it needed to be fixed, by putting surviving fragments together recreating the missing parts, making one of the most visually impressive monuments of the entire 18th century. The sculptor responsible for the restoration acquired a block of marble at the Carrara quarries and carved out the new bowl, into which the original antique fragments were inserted.

It was bought by a major force in the revival of the culture of antiquity, Sir William Hamilton, who tried to sell it to the British Museum.

What we have now is a visually magnificent pastiche, part antique and mainly modern, but one of the most admired and impressive monuments to leave Rome in the 18th century.

Interest in the Warwick Vase continued through the 19th century and into the 20th, and it was copied and imitated countless times. In the early 19th century, for example, the Royal Goldsmiths, Rundell and Bridge, made many silver gilt reduced copies and the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup clearly imitates one of these.

::Sunday, January 16, 2005 10:21:04 AM::

::Sunday, January 16, 2005 10:19:11 AM::

CINEMATIC ROME

An international conference organised by Nottingham Institute for Research in Visual Culture (NIRVC), September 2005.

CALL FOR PAPERS

From the early days of filmmaking to the present, Rome has been both an important centre for film production, and a compelling location for cinematic narrative. The city as a cinematic subject inherits a rich tradition of literary, artistic, and architectural representations - an inheritance which has hardly been investigated. Whether capitalising on the unique spectacle of Ancient Roman remains, exploring the social conflicts arising from the imposition of modern urbanism on the city, or mythologising touristic encounters with the Eternal City, filmmakers have seized on Rome as a symbolically resonant setting.
This conference aims to bring together historical and interpretative explorations of these complementary dimensions of the city's evolving cinematic identity. Proposals for papers are invited on any relevant topic. Papers which address the following themes would be particlarly welcome:

The city as mis-en-scène
Antique  Rome as theme and narrative
Film under Fascism
Cinecittà - origins and development
Rome as a site of crisis and destabilisation
Tourism in film: cliché and critique
The postwar city as modern ruin and international playground

Keynote speakers:
Professor Maria Wyke (University of Reading), author of Projecting Rome, and Jacopo Benci (Assisant Director, Fine Art, British School at Rome).

For enquiries and proposals, please contact;
Richard Wrigley, Department of Art History, University of Nottingham richard.wrigley@nottingham.ac.uk
Tel. 0115 951318Craig Kallendorf (University A&M Texas)
Virgil, Filelfo, Foucault
 
Stefano Carrai (Università di Siena)
Fra canzoniere e 'liber carminum': due modelli per la poesia rinascimentale italiana
 
Hugo Tucker (University of Reading)
A Roman Dialogue with Virgil and Homer: The 'Centones ex Virgilio' of Lelio Capilupi
 
Roberto Tissoni (Università di Genova)
Aspetti del classicismo letterario italiano da Giuseppe Parini a Giacomo Leopardi

... seen on the Classicists list

::Sunday, January 16, 2005 10:16:31 AM::

::Sunday, January 16, 2005 10:15:14 AM::

::Sunday, January 16, 2005 10:13:15 AM::