ante diem iii nonas februarias 

• 1995 -- death of John Pinsent (classicist and founder of Liverpool Classical Monthly)

::Thursday, February 03, 2005 5:37:43 AM::

Today's selection:

discursive @ Dictionary.com

nonplus @ Wordsmith

cogitabund @ Worthless Word for the Day

::Thursday, February 03, 2005 5:32:02 AM::

Just found this one ... some of my spiders need tweaking, apparently ... It's a review by Peter Jones and I'll give the incipit too:

Christopher Kelly, Ruling the Later Roman Empire

Trying to rule the Roman empire, said the harassed second emperor Tiberius (AD 14-37), was "like holding a wolf by the ears''. One can see his point of view. From Augustus to the third century AD, the imperial bureaucracy was only a small secretariat of salaried officials. The emperor simply headed a network of Roman governors to whom he had devolved responsibility for the running of the provinces. Consequently he was almost helpless if the governors let him down.

In the third century AD, they threatened to do so. Money was suddenly urgently needed to fund military operations against incursions on the empire's northern and eastern frontiers, but the provinces were simply not geared to responding to financial emergency, let alone willing.

The solution was the gradual development of a massive, centralised bureaucracy - unmatched in Europe, as Christopher Kelly, a Cambridge don, points out, until France and Prussia in the 18th century. At its height, perhaps 35,000 bureaucrats were at work exercising Roman imperial authority, while the emperor himself became a more distant and majestic being, pavilioned in splendour, surrounded by bodyguards, eunuchs and officials, and providing a magnificent model for a Christian heaven to which access was granted only to the privileged few. [the rest]

::Thursday, February 03, 2005 5:23:23 AM::

This is a bit of an experiment ... over at humanities.classics there is an incipient thread on Classics as a Career ... nothing 'new' yet, but I'm just curious if I can directly link to it at Google ...

[follow-up: I'm not sure if this is just me/the result of a cookie, but it seems to jump to the part where I started reading this a.m. ... you might have to use the scroll thingy to get to the start of the thread or the 'menu' on the left of the Googlegroups page]

::Thursday, February 03, 2005 5:12:54 AM::

::Thursday, February 03, 2005 5:07:31 AM::

Another slow news day, but this piece from PhysOrg is kind of interesting:

The world-renowned statue Hermes with the Infant Dionysos has been equipped with innovative seismic protective devices that will help the 7-foot-high marble statue of the Greek god withstand powerful earthquakes.
   
The protective devices, called Friction Pendulum bearings, were custom made for the statue based on analysis and tests conducted at the University at Buffalo's earthquake engineering laboratory.

More than 2,000 years old and generally regarded as an original of the famous Greek sculptor Praxiteles, the Hermes statue, located at Archaeological Museum of Olympia in Greece, is one of few works of art in the world equipped with devices to protect it against damage from major earthquakes.

"This is sometimes the best strategy for protecting individual artifacts other than seismically isolating an entire museum building, which is a significantly more complex and expensive task," said Michael Constantinou, Ph.D., co-investigator with Andrew Whittaker, Ph.D., both of whom are UB professors of civil, structural and environmental engineering.

Constantinou and Whittaker worked with Vlassis Koumousis, Ph.D., of the Technical University in Athens on the analysis of the seismic isolation system for the Hermes statue.

The methodology developed by the UB engineers also will allow the Greek Ministry of Culture, which funded the project, to evaluate the potential for seismically isolating other important statues. [more]

::Thursday, February 03, 2005 5:04:03 AM::

Carlo Zaccagnini (ed.), Mercanti e politica nel mondo antico. Saggi di storia antica, 21.

::Thursday, February 03, 2005 5:01:03 AM::

::Thursday, February 03, 2005 5:00:06 AM::

::Thursday, February 03, 2005 4:56:02 AM::

Mediterranean Encounters: People, History and Literature
11-12 February 2005

CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge
Supported by:
CRASSH
Middle East Graduate Association (MEGA)

The Mediterranean world has a rich history of encounters between people of various cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds. Given the often contentious nature of current discourse on the region, it is beneficial to adopt an inter-disciplinary approach to its study. Thus the Middle East Graduate Association of the University of Cambridge is hosting this conference to bring together studies on the exchange and interaction between various peoples within the Mediterranean in areas of trade, culture, literature and relations of power. The conference will be organized along several main themes: European and Middle Eastern historiography of the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean as a trade zone, Relations of power within the Mediterranean and the Mediterranean in literature and culture.

Conveners:
Murat Menguc (Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge)
Amina Elbendary (Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge)
Academic Advisor:
Irad Malkin (Professor of Ancient Greek History, Tel Aviv University)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Programme:

Friday 11 February
10.00-10.30 Coffee and Registration
10.30-11.00 Welcome and Opening Remarks
David Abulafia (Professor of Mediterranean History, University of Cambridge)
11.00-13.00 Session One
Chair: Ludmilla Jordanova (CRASSH, University of Cambridge)

The Mediterranean Option
Irad Malkin (Professor of Ancient Greek History, Tel Aviv University)

The Forgotten History of Cosmopolitanism
Dr William Gallois (Mellon Fellow in History, School of Oriental and
African Studies, Unive rsity of London)

The Legacy of Mediterranean Cosmopolitanism and the Political Rhetoric
of Identity in Modern Egypt: The Case of Women
Mona El- Sherif (Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of
California Berkeley)

13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-15.45 Session Two: Identities
Chair: Murat Menguc (Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge)

East meets West: Constructing a Mediterranean Identity in Albert
Camus's La nouvelle culture méditerranéenne
Neil Foxlee (University of Central Lancashire)

Orienting the Mezzogiorno: The Italian Southern Question and the
Mediterranean Races, 1861-1911
Aliza S. Wong (Faculty of History, Texas Tech University)

Beirut: A Case-Study in the Limits of Hellenisation
Nadine Boksmati (University of Cambridge)

15.45-16.15 Tea and Coffee
16.15-17.45 Session Three: The Mediterranean City
Chair: Paul Cartledge (Professor of Greek History, University of Cambridge)

Grog Shop Encounters in Alexandria, 1880-1900
Will Hanley (History Department, Princeton University)

Profile of a Mediterranean City: The Case of Medieval Scutari (XIV-XV Century)
Mag. Enriketa Pandelejmoni (Department for Southeast European History,
Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz)

Levantine Christians and Muslims in Early Modern Venice: Communities,
Networks and Identities
Georgios Plakotos (Department of Modern History, University of Glasgow)

Saturday 12 February
9.30-10.30 Mediterranean History as World History
Peregrine Horden (Reader in Medieval History, Royal Holloway,
University of London)
10.30-11.00 Tea and Coffee
11.00-13.00 Session Four: Session 4: Historical Constructs
Chair: TBC

The Map of the Christian Topography and its Influence
Maja Kominko (University of Oxford)

Religious Borders, Mobility and Conversion in the Mediterranean around 1600
Kim Siebenhüner (Modern History Faculty, University of Oxford)

Trade, Western Merchants and Ottoman Law in the Mediterranean: The
Evidence of a Manuscript from the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris
Viorel Panaite (University of Bucharest)

13. 00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-15.30 Session Five: Europe and the Mediterranean
Chair: Irad Malkin (Professor of Ancient Greek History, Tel Aviv University)

Similarities and Differences between the Regional Development
(Policies) of Turkey, Greece, Italy and Spain as Mediterranean
Countries in the Globalization Process
Levin Özgen (Süleyman Demirel University)

Trade and Security in the Mediterranean: Comparing EU and US Free
Trade Strategies in the Maghreb
Jean F. Crombois (Alakhawayn University, Ifrane, Morocco)

Turkey's Straits: A Contested Conduit between Europe and Asia
Susan Allen (Providence College, USA)

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Registration
A booking foorm is available to download here: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/2004-5/medencounters.html . Please return booking forms by 4 February. Please direct any enquiries about the conference to events@crassh.cam.ac.uk with your details.

For more information about the academic content of the conference, please contact the convener Murat Menguc mm499@cam.ac.uk.

... seen on the ANE list

::Thursday, February 03, 2005 4:40:54 AM::

Colloquium « Rhetoric and historiography »

On the 13th, 14th and 15th of October, 2005, the Université Laval (Quebec City, Canada) will have the pleasure of hosting this Colloquium, which takes place within the framework established by the cooperation agreements signed with the Université Marc-Bloch (Strasbourg, France). A second meeting will be hosted in Strasbourg in October 2006. The goal of the conference is to foster critical reflection on the links that exist between historiography and rhetoric. If one may say that historians and orators share a common will to persuade their audience and the same belief that their respective arts represent the sole path to discovering the truth, it must also be recognized that the two arts do not use the same means to reach that end. And yet the two fields intersect at various points: the historiographer, for example, must master a kind of rhetoric that will lend credibility to his words, while the orator must make frequent allusions to historical facts to illustrate and reinforce his arguments.

Conference organizers invite papers from anyone who is interested in exploring the relationship between these two genres; contributions may consider such various aspects as the points of convergence and divergence between the two fields, the notions of generic ambivalence, truth or exemplarity, or ancient perspectives on the two literary genres.

Scholars interested in participating to the colloquium in Quebec City should send a 300-words abstract before the 15th of March 2005 to: <alban.baudou@lit.ulaval.ca>.

Fees will be of $ 30 CAN, payable on arrival. Details about the organization of the Colloquium will be available in June on the web site of the Institut d’études anciennes de l’Université Laval: <www.ftsr.ulaval.ca/iea>

... seen in the Canadian Classical Bulletin

::Thursday, February 03, 2005 4:38:49 AM::

Interesting request via the Canadian Classical Bulletin:

My name is Shelley Rabinovitch, and I have taken on the task for the American publisher ABC-CLIO of revising their reference text "A Guide to the Gods" (as "Guide to the Gods and Goddesses") and am seeking contributors. Revised texts are due in early 2006, and ideally contributors will work at their own pace, sending me updates as they get through the easy part <just tweaking some of the old entries> and into the meaty work <writing or dramatically revising entries>.

We are both updating the existing entries, and where applicable, adding new entries and/or entire sections. Ideally I am seeking graduate students and/or faculty who can either edit the existing entries and/or add new entries where they see holes in the listings. Contributors can choose to work on just a few entries from one culture/area, or grab an entire culture/area if they so choose.

Many of the original sources cited in the first edition are badly out of date due to wonderful new research in many areas. I am looking for scholars who can work in English or other languages, who can translate from foreign-language texts (including Greek and Latin), etc.

There is some compensation available (both in copies of the completed book, and/or in cash), and it is a great chance for a new grad to get some academic publishing credit onto their c.v.'s. There are literally dozens of cultures and pantheons needing work. I have no specialists in Classical (Greek, Latin, Etruscan, etc. etc.), Asian religions (Chinese minority, Japanese, Tibet, etc. etc.), Polynesia/Micronesia/Melanesia, Southern and Eastern African tribal, Australasian, Central and/or South American, JUST to name a few.

I would appreciate the widest distribution of this request so that I can get a good start on revising and expanding the collection. I am looking for ethnographers and anthropologists, religionists, classicists, folklorists, etc. etc.

Please have interested parties contact me at:
Shelley Rabinovitch, PhD
tsivia@uottawa.ca
Dept. of Classics and Religious Studies
University of Ottawa
Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 6N5
Canada

::Thursday, February 03, 2005 4:37:38 AM::

4.00 p.m. |DISCC| Pompeii: The Last Day
On August 24, AD79, Mount Vesuvius showered the city of Pompeii with ash, smoke and rock; the city lay undisturbed under volcanic debris for more than 1,500 years; follow a compelling account of the city's final 24 hours, based on the buried evidence.

8.00 p.m. |HINT|   Who Wrote the New Testament?
In Part 3, we examine how heresies emerged, the literature they produced, and the dangers they posed to the early Christian Church. Few have heard of the 50 "other" gospels that circulated in antiquity, including the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and writings by Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate. Then, there are countless letters--some of them valid, others dangerously heretical, and a few that nearly made it into the accepted canon. And we learn in this investigation that if these "heresies" had been included in the New Testament, Christianity and our understanding of Christ would be fundamentally different.

DISCC = Discovery Channel (Canada)

HINT = History International

::Thursday, February 03, 2005 4:33:31 AM::