FEBRUARY 2nd, 2007
Professor Richard Thomas (Harvard University)
will deliver a lecture on "'Shadows are falling': Virgil, Radnóti, and Dylan, and the Aesthetics of Pastoral Melancholy."
11 a.m.
Italian Academy, 5th Floor Conference Room
FEBRUARY 9th, 2007
Professor Polly Low (University of Manchester)
will give a lecture on "Demosthenic Imperialism."
Fourth-century Greek politics is notoriously haunted by the 'ghost' of empire, a spectre which lurks in repesentations of earlier empires (particularly the Delian League) and in plans for future policy. This paper explores Demosthenes' attitude (or
attitudes) to imperialism, both as a reality (that is, his representations of past and contemporary empires), and in the abstract: what role do arche, hegemony, and other forms of the exercise of interstate power have in Demosthenes' picture of Greek interstate politics?
11 a.m.
Italian Academy, 5th Floor Conference Room
FEBRUARY 16th, 2007
Professor Joan Connelly (New York University)
will deliver a lecture on "Excavating Identity: Cypriot and Egyptian on late Hellenistic Yeronisos"
The small island of Yeronisos, just off the western coast of Cyprus, has yielded tantalizing evidence for the intersection of Cypriot and Egyptian practice in the final years of Ptolemaic rule. Remains of a sanctuary, complete with pilgrimage facilities, space for food preparation and distribution, and cisterns for water collection, attest to the significant resources directed toward the island in the middle of the first century B.C. Here, the old Cypriot tradition of placing young boys under the care of Apollo appears to have taken on a decidedly Ptolemaic flavour. Connelly presents the results of 16 seasons of work on Yeronisos and discusses the research models used in the interpretation of its material culture.
11 a.m.
Italian Academy, 5th Floor Conference Room
FEBRUARY 23rd, 2007
Professor Lee T. Pearcy (Episcopal Academy, Philadelphia)
will give a talk, "Classical Philology, Classical Humanism, and American Pragmatism," about the past, present, and future of teaching classics in the USA. Dr. Pearcy is the author of among other works The Grammar of Our Civility: Classical Education in America (2005).
11 a.m.
Italian Academy, 5th Floor Conference Room
MARCH 2nd, 2007
Professor Garrett G. Fagan (Pennsylvania State University)
will deliver a lecture on "Roman Arenas and Crowd Dynamics"
11 a.m.
Italian Academy, 5th Floor Conference Room
MARCH 30th, 2007
Professor Catherine Hezser (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London)
will deliver a lecture on "Jewish Slavery in Antiquity."
11 a.m.
Italian Academy, 5th Floor Conference Room
APRIL 5th, 2007
Professor Stephen Halliwell (University of St. Andrews)
will deliver a lecture on "Aristophanes' Frogs and the Paradoxes of Criticism"
The lecture will challenge some standard readings of the contest of tragedians in Frogs and will offer a fresh analysis
of how the play turns the idea of poetic criticism into a comic enigma.
5 p.m.
Italian Academy, 5th Floor Conference Room
APRIL 13th-14th, 2007
AELIUS ARISTIDES
Thanks to his autobiographical and other writings, the great orator Aelius Aristides (117-after180) is one of the best-known literary personalities of antiquity, yet he remains difficult to comprehend in many respects, not least his literary tastes and his passionate devotion to the god Asclepius. The Columbia conference on Aelius Aristides will bring together many of the world’s leading experts, including several of the participants in the current Franco-Italian project to re-edit the whole oeuvre, in an effort to locate the man in his literary and human context.
Speakers: Charles A. Behr, Glen W. Bowersock, Ewen Bowie, Raffaella Cribiore, Carlo Franco, Janet Downie, Christopher Jones, Brooke Holmes, Dana F. Fields, Estelle Oudot, Laurent Pernot, Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis, Suzanne Said, and Luana Quattrocelli.
For a complete program, please click here.
APRIL 20th, 2007
Professor Sheila Dillon (Duke University)
will deliver a lecture on "Women and the System of Statuary Honors in Ancient Greece"
Her recently published book is Ancient Greek Portrait Sculpture: Contexts, Subjects, and Styles (Cambridge University Press).
11 a.m.
Italian Academy, 5th Floor Conference Room
APRIL 27th, 2007
Professor Andreas Scholl (National Museums of Berlin, Director of the Collection of Classical Antiquities, Berlin)
will deliver a lecture on "The Pergamon Altar: Sacrificial Site, Hero Tomb, or Victory Monument?"
Resting on a huge foundation with an encircling spectacular frieze 113 m long and a 20 m wide staircase cut into the western side, a colonnade encloses the courtyard with the actual altar for offerings. The idea of a Greek altar is here heightened to an imposing independent monument. The lecture examines the history, function and meaning of the Pergamon Altar against the background of Greek Architecture and Iconography, offering a new and surprising interpretation.
11 a.m.
Italian Academy, 5th Floor Conference Room
