Boston Area Classics Calendar
November 2023
Sonia Sabnis (Reed College)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Fri., Nov. 10, 4:30 – 6:30 p.m.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY, College of Arts & Sciences, 725 Commonwealth Ave, Room 224
"W.E.B. Du Bois and the Citationality of Ancient Greece & Rome"
Description: Du Bois’ interest in and use of sources from ancient Greece and Rome has been a hot topic in recent years, evidenced by a special volume of the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (2019) and a conference at Penn State (2021). In the concluding essay of the former, Patrice Rankine noted “the need to postpone the word citation, given the difficulty of locating Du Bois’ exact sources of influence” and the accompanying turn to Gates’s theory of “Signifyin(g).” In this lecture, I use archival resources to survey Du Bois’ citations of ancient Greece and Rome. While citations of Greek and Roman sources are minimal features within Du Bois’ enormous oeuvre, they are prominent in his understanding of history and humanism in education. At the same time, Du Bois’ classical references suggest an ironic relationship to the citationality of Greece and Rome in mainstream white media, one that is supported by more acerbic writings by Du Bois’ NAACP colleague (and Yale classics major) William Pickens. Du Bois and Pickens’ particular brand of citation adds breadth to our understanding of exclusionary practices of the past.
Sponsors: Boston University Department of Classical Studies, Core Curriculum, Department of African American & Black Diaspora Studies, and the Boston University Center for Humanities
Boston University: Black Classicism—Moving Forward<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bu.edu_classics_de…>
www.bu.edu…<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bu.edu_classics_ne…>
classics(a)bu.edu<mailto:classics@bu.edu>
[Sonia Sabnis (Reed College)]
Niek Janssen (Amherst College)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Wed., Nov. 15, 4:45 – 6:15 p.m.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY, College of Arts & Sciences, Room B18, 725 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215
"Making Fit: Parody and Decorum in Greco-Roman Literature"
Description: The concepts of decorum and to prepon pervade Greco-Roman ethical and aesthetic thought. Yet ancient theorists from Plato to Dionysius, Cicero, Horace, and Quintilian struggle to articulate what "appropriateness" is and how it is grounded. By confronting these theorists with parodic and comedic texts, which stand in a double, transgressive-yet-conservative relationship to decorum, I argue that this inarticulability is a feature, not a bug, of the concept. Texts like Hegemon's Parodies, Plautus' Asinaria, and the Pseudo-Virgilian Culex reveal the instability of decorum as a basis for normative thought--as a principle for aesthetic judgment and social inclusion/exclusion.
Sponsors: BU Department of Classical Studies & The Boston University Center for the Humanities
Boston University: New Approaches to Classics<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bu.edu_classics_ne…>
www.bu.edu…<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bu.edu_classics_ne…>
classics(a)bu.edu<mailto:classics@bu.edu>
[Niek Janssen (Amherst College)]
Mary Lefkowitz (Wellesley College)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Thu., Nov. 30, 4:30 – 6 p.m.
AMHERST COLLEGE, Octagon 200 (Babbott Room), 220 St. Pleasant St., Amherst, MA 01002
"Songs of Praise for Mortals: What They Can and Cannot Do"
classics(a)amherst.edu<mailto:classics@amherst.edu>
Niels Kuehlert (Harvard University)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Thu., Nov. 30, 5 p.m.
Via Zoom
GSAS Workshop "Indo-European and Historical Linguistics”<https://linguistics.fas.harvard.edu/pages/indo-european-workshop>
December 2023
Activating Kore 670: Women's Voices and Greek Tragedy<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Sat., Dec. 2
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON, Early Greek Art Gallery, 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115
In celebration of Kore 670, a stunning archaic Greek statue now on view in Gallery 213, see live performances by Emerson College students and area high school students adapting excerpts from ancient Greek tragedies. From Elektra and Antigone to Cassandra and Iphigenia, women featured prominently in ancient Greek theater, yet their roles were performed by men. In three 20-minute performances, students studying theater actively disrupt that traditional practice, revealing how gender bias—both in the ancient world and now—is hardly a new concept.
Saturday, December 2
11:00–11:20 a.m.
1:00–1:20 p.m.
2:00–2:20 p.m.
www.mfa.org…<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.mfa.org_event_spec…>
Danny Cashman | dcashman(a)mfa.org<mailto:dcashman@mfa.org>
[Activating Kore 670: Women's Voices and Greek Tragedy]
Screening of Michael Cacoyannis' film "The Trojan Women"<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Tue., Dec. 5, 6 – 8 p.m.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Fong Auditorium (Room 110), Boylston Hall, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
Featuring introductory remarks by Professor Panagiotis Roilos: "On Trauma in Ancient Greek Tragedy"
Harvard Greek Film Society
dourou(a)fas.harvard.edu<mailto:dourou@fas.harvard.edu>
[Screening of Michael Cacoyannis' film "The Trojan Women"]
Benjamin Dunning (Harvard University)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Fri., Dec. 8, 12 – 1:15 p.m.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD, Cambridge, MA 02138
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar: Civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome<https://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/civilizations-ancient-greece>
February 2024
Tom Sapsford (Boston College)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Fri., Feb. 23, 12 – 1:15 p.m.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD, Cambridge, MA 02138
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar: Civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome<https://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/civilizations-ancient-greece>
April 2024
Sarah Olsen (Williams College)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Fri., Apr. 12, 12 – 1:15 p.m.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD, Cambridge, MA 02138
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar: Civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome<https://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/civilizations-ancient-greece>
Association of Ancient Historians 2024 Annual Meeting<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Thu., Apr. 18 – Mon., Apr. 22
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD, Cambridge, MA 02138
associationofancienthistorians.org<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__associationofancienthi…>
View the entire calendar online<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar>
Subscribe<https://web.lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/calclass-list> to weekly emails.
View calendar<http://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar>.
Submit events using our event submission form<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/event-submission>.
Contact calclass(a)fas.harvard.edu<mailto:calclass@fas.harvard.edu> with questions or additions/corrections.
Boston Area Classics Calendar
November 2023
Eric Driscoll (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Tue., Nov. 7, 5 p.m.
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Building 14, Room 14E-304, 160 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02139
"Hellenism, Archaeology, Apocalypse"
This talk offers a reading of Kostas Vrettakos’s 1980 documentary short, The Layer of Destruction, in the context of the modern Greek archaeological and folkloric imaginaries. In the 1970s, Greece constructed a dam across the Mornos river, near the southern end of the Pindus Mountains, to create a reservoir that would supply Athens with drinking water. Today, below the waters of this artificial lake lie the remains of an ancient city, Kallipolis or Kallion. In Layer of Destruction, Vrettakos creates a lyrical memorial for Kallion by depicting his visits to the excavations conducted in the late 1970s as the reservoir’s rising waters threatened and eventually covered the site. In the Greek national narrative, archaeological excavation is conceived as an additive process that recovers what Yannis Hamilakis calls “fragments of national memory” and thereby restitutes missing fragments of a collective history. But in Vrettakos’s film, archaeology emerges instead as a form of destruction, a force that—in the language of Jacob Taubes—reinserts time into eternity and suggests that “the order of the world is gripped by death,” that “time… moves toward an end.” Recovering artefacts does not fully recuperate memory or revivify lost time, but in fact accelerates their ultimate loss. What does it mean to see national archaeology as destructive, self-contradictory, and apocalyptic rather than triumphant and restorative?
Bio: Eric Driscoll is a Hellenist, classical archaeologist, and historian of the ancient Mediterranean world. He studied Classics at the University of Chicago and holds a PhD in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology from the University of California, Berkeley. Before moving to Cambridge in 2021 to teach at Harvard and now at MIT, where he is Lecturer in Ancient and Medieval Studies, Eric lived in Greece for five years, including two spent serving as the Assistant Director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
calendar.mit.edu…<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__calendar.mit.edu_event…>
[Eric Driscoll (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)]
II Edition of the RCCHU Ancient History International Seminars<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Wed., Nov. 8, 4 – 6 p.m.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, RCCHU Conference Room, 26 Trowbridge St., Cambridge, MA, and over Zoom
PANEL III. Section 1. Ancient Rome
Sponsors: Real Colegio Complutense at Harvard University; University of Cordoba; Complutense University of Madrid; Harvard University; University of Seville
rcc.harvard.edu…<https://rcc.harvard.edu/event/panel-iii-section-1-ancient-rome>
Organizer: Unai Iriarte Asarta (uiriarte(a)fas.harvard.edu<mailto:uiriarte@fas.harvard.edu>)
Jorge Wong Medina (Harvard University)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Thu., Nov. 9, 5 p.m.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Room 237, Boylston Hall, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
"Contraction and Diectasis in Homeric Diction"
Sonia Sabnis (Reed College)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Fri., Nov. 10, 4:30 – 6:30 p.m.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY, College of Arts & Sciences, 725 Commonwealth Ave, Room 224
"W.E.B. Du Bois and the Citationality of Ancient Greece & Rome"
Description: Du Bois’ interest in and use of sources from ancient Greece and Rome has been a hot topic in recent years, evidenced by a special volume of the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (2019) and a conference at Penn State (2021). In the concluding essay of the former, Patrice Rankine noted “the need to postpone the word citation, given the difficulty of locating Du Bois’ exact sources of influence” and the accompanying turn to Gates’s theory of “Signifyin(g).” In this lecture, I use archival resources to survey Du Bois’ citations of ancient Greece and Rome. While citations of Greek and Roman sources are minimal features within Du Bois’ enormous oeuvre, they are prominent in his understanding of history and humanism in education. At the same time, Du Bois’ classical references suggest an ironic relationship to the citationality of Greece and Rome in mainstream white media, one that is supported by more acerbic writings by Du Bois’ NAACP colleague (and Yale classics major) William Pickens. Du Bois and Pickens’ particular brand of citation adds breadth to our understanding of exclusionary practices of the past.
Sponsors: Boston University Department of Classical Studies, Core Curriculum, Department of African American & Black Diaspora Studies, and the Boston University Center for Humanities
Boston University: Black Classicism—Moving Forward<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bu.edu_classics_de…>
www.bu.edu…<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bu.edu_classics_ne…>
classics(a)bu.edu<mailto:classics@bu.edu>
[Sonia Sabnis (Reed College)]
Niek Janssen (Amherst College)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Wed., Nov. 15, 4:45 – 6:15 p.m.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY, College of Arts & Sciences, Room B18, 725 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215
"Making Fit: Parody and Decorum in Greco-Roman Literature"
Description: The concepts of decorum and to prepon pervade Greco-Roman ethical and aesthetic thought. Yet ancient theorists from Plato to Dionysius, Cicero, Horace, and Quintilian struggle to articulate what "appropriateness" is and how it is grounded. By confronting these theorists with parodic and comedic texts, which stand in a double, transgressive-yet-conservative relationship to decorum, I argue that this inarticulability is a feature, not a bug, of the concept. Texts like Hegemon's Parodies, Plautus' Asinaria, and the Pseudo-Virgilian Culex reveal the instability of decorum as a basis for normative thought--as a principle for aesthetic judgment and social inclusion/exclusion.
Sponsors: BU Department of Classical Studies & The Boston University Center for the Humanities
Boston University: New Approaches to Classics<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bu.edu_classics_ne…>
www.bu.edu…<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bu.edu_classics_ne…>
classics(a)bu.edu<mailto:classics@bu.edu>
[Niek Janssen (Amherst College)]
December 2023
Activating Kore 670: Women's Voices and Greek Tragedy<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Sat., Dec. 2
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON, Early Greek Art Gallery, 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115
In celebration of Kore 670, a stunning archaic Greek statue now on view in Gallery 213, see live performances by Emerson College students and area high school students adapting excerpts from ancient Greek tragedies. From Elektra and Antigone to Cassandra and Iphigenia, women featured prominently in ancient Greek theater, yet their roles were performed by men. In three 20-minute performances, students studying theater actively disrupt that traditional practice, revealing how gender bias—both in the ancient world and now—is hardly a new concept.
Saturday, December 2
11:00–11:20 a.m.
1:00–1:20 p.m.
2:00–2:20 p.m.
www.mfa.org…<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.mfa.org_event_spec…>
Danny Cashman | dcashman(a)mfa.org<mailto:dcashman@mfa.org>
[Activating Kore 670: Women's Voices and Greek Tragedy]
Screening of Michael Cacoyannis' film "The Trojan Women"<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Tue., Dec. 5, 6 – 8 p.m.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Fong Auditorium (Room 110), Boylston Hall, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
Featuring introductory remarks by Professor Panagiotis Roilos: "On Trauma in Ancient Greek Tragedy"
Harvard Greek Film Society
dourou(a)fas.harvard.edu<mailto:dourou@fas.harvard.edu>
[Screening of Michael Cacoyannis' film "The Trojan Women"]
Benjamin Dunning (Harvard University)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Fri., Dec. 8, 12 – 1:15 p.m.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD, Cambridge, MA 02138
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar: Civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome<https://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/civilizations-ancient-greece>
February 2024
Tom Sapsford (Boston College)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Fri., Feb. 23, 12 – 1:15 p.m.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD, Cambridge, MA 02138
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar: Civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome<https://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/civilizations-ancient-greece>
April 2024
Sarah Olsen (Williams College)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Fri., Apr. 12, 12 – 1:15 p.m.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD, Cambridge, MA 02138
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar: Civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome<https://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/civilizations-ancient-greece>
Association of Ancient Historians 2024 Annual Meeting<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?trumbaEmbed=…>
Thu., Apr. 18 – Mon., Apr. 22
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD, Cambridge, MA 02138
associationofancienthistorians.org<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__associationofancienthi…>
View the entire calendar online<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar>
Subscribe<https://web.lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/calclass-list> to weekly emails.
View calendar<http://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar>.
Submit events using our event submission form<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/event-submission>.
Contact calclass(a)fas.harvard.edu<mailto:calclass@fas.harvard.edu> with questions or additions/corrections.
