Ist INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM
on
THE ORACLE IN ANTIQUITY AND THE CULTS OF APOLLO IN ASIA MINOR
17-20th of August, 2005 at the Faculty of Letters, Ege University
Bornova-Ýzmir
[copies of the programme can be obtained by e-mailing the listowner at:
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Approaching Diaspora and Cultural Identity:
The Middle Euphrates in Antiquity
Rome, Università degli Studi La Sapienza, September, 15-17
ABSTRACT
The Middle Euphrates ever since has been a zone of intense contacts between
cultural and political formations, between sedentary groups and nomads,
between Christians, Jews, politheists and finally Muslims. A prominent role
was played by diaspora groups who tried to maintain their distinctive
identities in alien, sometimes even hostile environments. They can be
traced
in the archaeological, papyrological and epigraphic records of the Middle
Euphrates throughout antiquity. The conference, funded by the Faculty of
Arts of the University of Rome "La Sapienza", aims at reconstructing
cultural identities, modes of interaction and strategies of segregation in
a confusingly complex and heterogeneous environment by bridging the gap
between Ancient History, Ancient Near Eastern, Jewish and Cultural Studies.
CONTACT
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The University of Sydney
Research Seminars in Classics and Ancient History
Second Semester 2005
You will find below the program of research seminars in classics and
ancient
history at the University of Sydney this semester. Seminars are held every
second Thursday between 4 and 6 pm in the Kevin Lee Room (Main Quadrangle
H604). For further information on the program or to offer a research paper
of
40 minutes please contact the Department’s convener of the research seminar
program David Pritchard (+61-2-9351 6815 [log in to unmask]).
11 August (1)
Lindsay Watson (University of Sydney) ‘Catullus and the Poetics of Incest’
Michael Turner (University of Sydney) ‘Aphrodite and Her Birds: The
Iconology
of the Swan and Iunx’
25 August (2)
David Pritchard (University of Sydney) ‘War, Democracy and Popular Culture
in
Fifth-Century Athens’
Marguerite Johnson (University of Newcastle) ‘‘Off with the Pixies’: The
Fey
Folk of the Long Poems of Catullus and His Poetical Disclosure’
8 September (3)
Selim Adali (University of Sydney) ‘The Scythian Hegemony in the Ancient
Near
East: Neither Fact or Fiction’
Noel Weeks (University of Sydney) ‘Chronicles: The Best or the Worst
Sourced of
the Biblical Narratives?’
22 September (4)
Nicholas Hardwick (University of Sydney) ‘The Coinage of Chios 600-300
BCE: New
Research Developments 1991-2005’.
James Uden (University of Sydney) ‘Sex, Love and Neoplatonism in the
Elegies of
Maximianus’
6 October (5)
Eric Csapo (University of Sydney) ‘Theatre Managers in the Ancient Greek
World’
Jon Hall (University of Otago) ‘Serving the Times: Cicero and Caesar in 46
to 44
BC’
20 October (6)
Jonathan Hastie (University of Sydney) ‘Sophrosune and the Cardinal
Virtues in
Plutarch's Life of Agis.
Frances Muecke (University of Sydney) ‘Hannibal at the Bay of Naples: A
‘Wasteful Excursion’ (Silius Italicus 12.1-157)?’
3 November (7)
Alex Stevens (Sydney Grammar School) ‘The Aesthetics of Divine Action in
Homer’
Fiona Tweedie (University of Sydney) ‘Lives Less Ordinary: P. Sittius and
A.
Caecina’
17 November (8)
Han Baltussen (University of Adelaide) ‘Plutarch’s Consolation to His Wife:
Ancient Psychotherapy Revisited’.
Harold Tarrant (University of Newcastle) ‘The Ancient Reception of the
Atlantis
Story: Fact or Fiction?
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Cults, Creeds and Contests in the Post-classical City
Call for papers for a workshop in the institute of classical studies,
London, 30 March-1 April 2006
This is a call for papers for an international workshop on the religious
history of the Greek city of the Hellenistic, Roman and Later Roman
periods.
This workshop is an instalment of a very successful series of meetings in
Groningen, London and Athens that have been organised in the framework of
the International Research Network ' From Alexander to Justinian: aspects
of the history of the postclassical Greek city', which is directed by Prof.
Richard Alston , RHUL, London, and Prof. Onno van Nijf, University of
Groningen (NL). The proceedings of the workshops will be published as a
series by the Institute of Classical Studies, London.
1: Background
Since the work of Durkheim we have grown accustomed to the fact that
ancient Greek religion was eminently social. Greek cults and religious
practices were intimately bound up with the communities in which they were
rooted. Although there has been a tendency to study Greek religion as a
panhellenic system, it is true to say that the nature of Greek religion
was closely bound up with the polis community. There was an essential
unity between the polis as a social and political organisation and as a
religious community. Cults and priesthoods were a matter of political
importance, priesthoods were filled by citizens; festivals celebrated
protective deities, and represented the city as a community. Greek cities
articulated themselves through religious practices as much as through
their political actions. So much, at least, is accepted for the classical
polis.
2: Religion and the later Greek polis
The post-classical Greek city is thought to have seen significant changes
in the notion of the community and in the nature of religion. The
Hellenistic period saw changes in traditional polis religion:
the 'formalistic' civic cults were supposedly being elbowed aside by
elective cults with a broader geographical appeal, that seemed to offer
different modes of contact with the divine. New cults and religious
practices also made an appearance: on the one hand we find ruler cults, on
the other the growth of 'private' religious associations, both of which
appear to have been less obvious integrated into the Greek cities. Other
gods, often of foreign extraction,also established themselves all over the
Greek world. In the Roman period,the old gods were confronted by an
emerging Christianity, which was to become the official religion of the
Late Antique polis. Such developments focus attention on the link between
the Hellenism of the cities and the more fluid fragmented local religious
environment of the post-Classical period and raise the oxymoronic
possibility that the new-found diversity of the post-Classical period was
part of a process of cultural integration that culminated in a monotheism
that was both universal and local.
3: The workshop
The aim of this workshop is to locate the cults and religious practices
from Alexander to Justinian firmly within the context of the Greek city of
this period. We ask the participants to keep this central issue in mind. A
central question is: "What was the relationship between the city as a
social and political form of organisation, and the cults and religious
practices that were found inside the city?" Possible other questions
include:
* How did city identity impinge on -old and new- cults and
religious practices?
* Did cult associations and elective cults undermine the
city, or were there ways in which they could integrated into the city?
* How did the cities cope with cults and religious practices
that had their centre outside the city?
* How did different religious traditions compete and co-
exist in the same city?
Among the themes we may explore in the sessions are:
* contest and competitions and city
* civic priesthoods and religious officials
* religious alternatives to the city
* civic temples and sanctuaries
* ruler cult and state religion within the city
4 Practicalities
The workshop will take place 30-31 March and 1 April 2006 in the Institute
of Classical Studies, London. We are aiming at a small scale workshop with
c. 12 papers, and a maximum of 25 participants. To improve discussions we
expect to pre-circulate the papers or extended outlines, at least a month
before the start of workshop.
If you want to offer a paper or participate in the workshop, please write
toone of the organisers. Some funding for travel and other expenses is
available.
Prof. Richard Alston Prof. Onno van Nijf
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Paradox and the Marvellous in Augustan Poetry
An international conference to be held in Corpus Christi College, Oxford,
22-24 September 2005.
For further details and booking forms contact Philip Hardie
([log in to unmask])
Provisional list of speakers and titles:
Alessandro Barchiesi (Siena/Stanford) tba
James Burbidge (Oxford) [Virgil: tba]
Mario Citroni (Florence) 'Horace and the fantastic: poetic theory and
practice'
Alain Dérémetz (Lille) 'Invraisemblance in Augustan poetry: some
reflections'
Jacqueline Fabre-Serris (Lille) 'Constructing a narrative of mira deum:
the story of Baucis and Philemon (Ovid, Met. 8)'
Marco Fucecchi (Udine) 'Encountering the fantastic: expectations, forms of
communication, reactions'
Philip Hardie (Oxford) '"Double-faced and double-mouthed": the monster
Fama'
Jean-Christophe Jolivet (Lille) 'The marvellous and allegory: some
Augustan examples'
Florence Klein (Lille) 'Prodigiosa mendacia vatum: the poetic problems of
the marvellous: reflections on the character of Perseus in the
Metamorphoses'
Mario Labate (Florence) 'In search of the lost Hercules: strategies of the
marvellous in the Aeneid'
Dunstan Lowe (Cambridge) 'Amores Perros: Taming the body of the
Scylla'
Anne Maugier-Sinha (Lille) 'The episode of the Lemnian women in Valerius
Flaccus and Statius'
Melanie Möller (Heidelberg) 'Fantastic Phantastische(s) Dichte(n). Eine
kleine Semantik des Properz'
Damien Nelis (Dublin/Geneva) 'From monsters to heroes: epic evolution'
Donncha O'Rourke (Dublin) tba
Glenn Patten (Heidelberg) 'Posteri negabitis. Political fantasy in Horace'
Gianpiero Rosati (Udine) 'Fantastic theology in Ovid's Metamorphoses'
Alessandro Schiesaro (London/Rome) tba
Jürgen Schwindt (Heidelberg) 'Thaumatographia'
Justine Wolfenden (Oxford) [Lucretius: tba]
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