GCONF: Fashion, Trend, and Novelty: the 7th Annual UNC-Duke Graduate
Colloquium in Classics

March 27, 2004
Chapel Hill, North Carolina U.S.A.

Keynote Speaker:  Dr. Joy Connolly, Stanford University

Consciousness of style, whether novel or traditional, is pervasive in
both classical literature and the plastic arts.  Homer sings the "aoidh
newtath", Horace his "carmina non prius audita".  Several periods of
classical literature define themselves by intertextual reactions or
allusions to earlier authors, and we are left with a diachronic
impression of ancient literary vogue.  In the realm of material culture,
discussions of style have always shaped our understanding of art and
architecture, and contemporary criticism highlights the ancients'
alertness to competing fashions.  Ultimately, of course, a poem's or
statue's canonization and consequent preservation is a matter of the
taste and fashion of succeeding generations.

This colloquium invites papers that consider fashion and fashions,
literary or artistic, whether in specific or in abstract, including
depictions of and attitudes towards (un)fashionable styles of
speech and writing, philosophical methods, historical styles, and
architectural and plastic representations.  When - and how - do certain
trends in literature and history become fashionable or passe?  What is
the value of aesthetics in the ancient world?  How does novelty stand in
opposition to conservatism in different periods and locales?
Submissions may also examine influences on stylistic evolution and
ancient attitudes towards this evolution: to what extent can we see an
awareness of the changing fashions?   What do ancient fashions tell us
about the cultures they reflect? How do the ancients struggle to define
themselves within and in reaction to the fashions of their day?

The colloquium will take place on Saturday, March 27, 2004, in
Murphey Hall, on the campus of the University of North Carolina, Chapel
Hill.  We encourage the submission of papers that reflect a variety of
diverse and interdisciplinary approaches, as well as traditional
approaches.  Please submit one-page anonymous abstracts by January 23,
2004, to colloquium@unc.edu or by mail to the address below.  Please
include in the body of your message (or on a separate sheet of paper)
your name, email address, phone number, paper title, and academic
affiliation.

UNC-Duke Classics Colloquium
Department of Classics
CB #3145, 212 Murphey Hall
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3145 U.S.A.

Please direct further inquiries to Erika Zimmermann, zimmermann@unc.edu,
or see the colloquium website at http://classics.unc.edu/colloquium.

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