Boston Area Classics Calendar
September 2021
Entangled Histories: The Bamiyan Buddhas—Past, Present, and
Future<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?tr…
Wed., Sep. 22, 7 – 8:15 p.m.
HARVARD ART MUSEUMS (Zoom)
Western scholarship has focused on the monumental sculptures in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan
Valley as Buddhas created in the late sixth and early seventh centuries. This lecture
tells an alternative story based on Islamic sources from the tenth to the twentieth
century, which saw these sculptures not as Buddhas but as legendary heroes representing
the mythic conversion of the Bamiyan Valley to Islam. At the beginning of the twenty-first
century, the Taliban destroyed the sculptures—as Buddhas. After the fall of the Taliban,
the sculptures’ entangled histories and the viewpoints of multiple stakeholders posed
challenges for the global debate on how best to memorialize the destroyed images. Now that
the Taliban has again taken power, the question is: what is Bamiyan’s future?
Speakers:
Deborah Klimburg-Salter, University Professor of Art History, emerita, University of
Vienna, Austria, and Associate, Department of South Asian Studies, Harvard University
Masanori Nagaoka, Programme Specialist for Culture, UNESCO Office in Cambodia
This talk will take place online via Zoom. Free admission, but registration is required.
To register, please complete this online
form<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__harvard.zoom.u…th_9cG98qRJBC-0oV40&e=>.
Please read these instructions on how to join a meeting on
Zoom<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__support.zoom.u…_DcxBNKCow6bHLAWDac&e=>.
For general questions, email
am_register@harvard.edu<mailto:am_register@harvard.edu>.
The Harvard Art Museums are committed to accessibility for all visitors. For anyone
requiring accessibility accommodations for our programs, please contact us at
am_register@harvard.edu<mailto:am_register@harvard.edu> at least 48 hours in
advance.
M. Victor Leventritt Lecture
harvardartmuseums.org…<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-…
am_register@harvard.edu<mailto:am_register@harvard.edu>
Patricia Rosenmeyer (University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?tru…
Wed., Sep. 29, 12 – 1:15 p.m.
Zoom
"The Body and the Letter"
The letter is always a reminder of an absence that engenders and sustains the
correspondence. This talk explores how Roman letter writers (Cicero, Seneca, Ovid)
construct their epistolary addressee’s absence and their own presence on the page. The
letter may be a reflection of the writer’s soul, a replacement for the writer’s physical
body, or even a “real” trace (e.g. blood, tears) of the absent body. By reading these
epistolary strategies through the lens of metonymy and synecdoche, we can differentiate
between situations of amicitia or fraternal amor (usually presented through metonymy) and
erotic amor (usually presented through synecdoche).
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar: Civilizations of Ancient Greece and
Rome<https://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/civilizations-ancient-gr…
harvard.zoom.us…<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__ha…
[Patricia Rosenmeyer (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)]
October 2021
Vassiliki Panoussi (College of William and
Mary)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?tru…
Fri., Oct. 1, 4 – 5 p.m.
UMASS AMHERST, Herter Hall, Room 301, Amherst, MA 01002
"Celebrating Isis: Ritual and Ethnicity in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses."
Sponsored by the UMass Amherst Classics Department
www.umass.edu…<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.…
Kendra Eshelman (Boston
College)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?…
Mon., Oct. 18, 4:30 – 6:15 p.m.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY, CAS B18, 685–725 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215
Topic TBA
Sponsored by the BU Center for the Humanities
Boston University: Myth & Religion In The Ancient
World<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bu.edu_cl…
Jeremy Swist (Brandeis
University)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calend…
Tue., Oct. 19, 5 p.m.
Zoom. See registration link.
"Fascist Receptions of Antiquity in Metal Music"
Since its genesis a half-century ago, heavy metal music and the counterculture that formed
around it has generally defined itself through transgressive sounds, words, and images as
expressions of rebellion against modern and contemporary systems of order, conformity, and
control. Often complementary to metal’s core antagonisms to modernity are romanticizing
appeals to a premodern past, including ancient Greece and Rome. A small but influential
minority of European metal artists push transgression to extremes by flirting with or
fully embracing fascist imagery and ideology, and in the process replicating and
perpetuating fascist and white supremacist manipulations of a classical antiquity they
dream of resurrecting through apocalyptic war and genocide. Fascistic metal artists, many
of whom are connected to extremist and terrorist groups and individuals, charismatically
offer to thousands of tolerant and susceptible consumers harmful distortions of the
classical past. In this talk I not only critique these artists' appropriations of
classical history and culture in light of the far-right’s general reception thereof, but I
also highlight positive solutions from within the global metal scene to challenge these
hateful usurpations of the ancient world.
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar: Classical Traditions and
Receptions<https://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/classical-traditio…
harvard.zoom.us…<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__ha…
[Jeremy Swist (Brandeis University)]
November 2021
Caitlin Gillespie (Brandeis
University)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calend…
Mon., Nov. 8, 4:30 – 6:15 p.m.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY, CAS B18, 685–725 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215
Topic TBA
Sponsored by the BU Center for the Humanities
Boston University: Myth & Religion In The Ancient
World<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bu.edu_cl…
December 2021
Kelly Dugan (Trinity
College)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?…
Wed., Dec. 1, 12 – 1:15 p.m.
Zoom
TBA
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar: Civilizations of Ancient Greece and
Rome<https://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/civilizations-ancient-gr…
February 2022
Maurizio Bettini (University of
Siena)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?tr…
Wed., Feb. 2, 12 – 1:15 p.m.
Zoom
TBA
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar: Civilizations of Ancient Greece and
Rome<https://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/civilizations-ancient-gr…
March 2022
Patrick Finglass (University of
Bristol)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?…
Fri., Mar. 18, 4 – 6 p.m.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY, 745 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 409, Boston, MA 02215
Topic TBA
Sponsored by the BU Center for the Humanities
Boston University: Myth & Religion In The Ancient
World<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bu.edu_cl…
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