Boston Area Classics Calendar
November 2023
Eric Driscoll (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calend…
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__c…
[Eric Driscoll (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)]
II Edition of the RCCHU Ancient History International
Seminars<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?…
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-ancie…
Organizer: Unai Iriarte Asarta
(uiriarte@fas.harvard.edu<mailto:uiriarte@fas.harvard.edu>)
Jorge Wong Medina (Harvard
University)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calend…
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?…
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_…
www.bu.edu…<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bu.…
classics@bu.edu<mailto:classics@bu.edu>
[Sonia Sabnis (Reed College)]
Niek Janssen (Amherst
College)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?…
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…
www.bu.edu…<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bu.…
classics@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?t…
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.mf…
Danny Cashman | dcashman@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-calend…
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@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-calend…
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-gr…
February 2024
Tom Sapsford (Boston
College)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?…
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-gr…
April 2024
Sarah Olsen (Williams
College)<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?…
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-gr…
Association of Ancient Historians 2024 Annual
Meeting<https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar?t…
Thu., Apr. 18 – Mon., Apr. 22
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD, Cambridge, MA 02138
associationofancienthistorians.org<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/…
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