Conference: Visualising Epic: Call for papers

A three day conference at the University of Nottingham, UK, September 6-8 2005

This interdisciplinary conference will focus on the intersection between ancient epic and the visual in the broadest possible sense: reading epics themselves as visual, exploring ancient visual representations of epic and modern receptions of epic in film and the visual arts. We aim to bring together classicists and art historians to think about how epic is visualised and made visual. What are the problems and contradictions of huge narrative texts as visual art?

Papers on any aspect of the subject are welcome: visual readings of ancient epic, the epic gaze, Homer on pots, Virgil in friezes, Statius and sculpture, representations of epic subject matter in sculpture or painting, epic on film or in graphic novels.

Invited speakers include:

Nicholas Alfrey (Nottingham)
John Henderson (Cambridge)
Tom Holland (author of Rubicon)
Katharina Lorenz (Giessen, Germany),
Nick Lowe (Royal Holloway)
Helen Morales (Cambridge)
Patricia Salzman (Montclair, USA)
Elizabeth Speller (author of Following Hadrian)
Richard Wrigley (Nottingham)

Please send abstracts to Helen Lovatt (helen.lovatt@nott.ac.uk) or Caroline Vout (caroline.vout@nott.ac.uk) by 31st January 2005. Abstracts should be 400 words or less.

... seen on the Classicists list

::Tuesday, November 09, 2004 5:09:38 AM::

"Exploring Roman Manhood: Formations, Transformations, and Contestations"

Three-Year Colloquium
2006 Annual Meeting of the APA (Montreal)

Call for Papers

Organizers: Jill Connelly, Texas Tech University; Elizabeth Manwell, Kalamazoo College; Mark Masterson, Hamilton College

Ever since the publication of Sarah Pomeroy's Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves, the study of women has been a prominent feature of classical studies, and courses on women in antiquity have become a staple of college course offerings. The study of men, however, as an outgrowth of women's studies and now gender studies, is a more recent field of exploration and one that has begun to receive attention. Increasingly, scholars of the ancient world have endeavored to problematize understandings of Roman male culture as merely political, military, or voluptuary and to suggest instead that Roman manhood is the dynamic product of social processes of enculturation. The research of Carlin Barton, Virginia Burrus, Maud Gleason, Erik Gunderson, Mathew Kuefler, Amy Richlin, and Craig Williams, among others, has helped to deepen our understanding of masculinity in Rome by focusing on Roman men's formative relationships with sexuality, women/femininity, and the social expectations for viri.

In our colloquium's second year, "Transformations of Roman Manhood," we would like to focus on the various changes to which Roman manhood was subject. Authors are encouraged to construe "transformation" broadly. Papers may approach this topic from various perspectives, including (but not limited to) social/historical, literary, feminist- and/or queer-theoretical, archaeological, art-historical, or anthropological. Questions addressed by individual papers might include:

1. How do concepts associated with Roman manhood change over time?
2. Women can possess virtues (e.g., virtus, fortitudo, etc.) marked as masculine by the Romans. Does this relative independence of masculine virtue from the male body transform Roman manhood? (If so, how and according to whom?)
3. How does the change from a small republic of citizen soldiers to an empire supported by mercenaries alter the realization of Roman manhood? Or, put differently, what effect does the removal of elite males from the ranks of the soldiery have on Roman manhood?
4. What impact does the coming of Christianity have on Roman concepts of masculinity?
5. How do various literary genres (epic, elegy, historiography, drama, etc.) and/or philosophy/theology/rhetoric portray or interact with transformations of Roman manhood?

Abstracts of 500-800 words are due by February 2, 2005. Submit abstracts, by email (preferred) or as a hard copy, to Elizabeth Manwell, Department of Classical Studies, Kalamazoo College, 1200 Academy Street, Kalamazoo MI 49006. Abstracts will be judged anonymously by two referees.

... seen on the Classics list

::Tuesday, November 09, 2004 5:05:42 AM::