Preliminary notice: Engendering Reception: From Penelope to Atwood’s Penelopiad
University of Toronto, April 24-25 2010

The Classics Graduate Student Association of the University of Toronto
invites abstracts for a graduate conference on the theme Engendering
Reception, to be held in Toronto on April 24-25, 2010. Our keynote
speaker will be Susanna Braund, Canada Research Chair in Latin Poetry
and its Reception, University of British Columbia.

This conference aims to consider the role gender plays in reception
both within antiquity and beyond. What does it mean when Catullus and
Horace imitate Sappho? How are epic heroines and villains portrayed in
other genres? How is gender played out in later imitations of Greek
and Roman literature (e.g. Racine’s Phèdre)? What are the issues
facing contemporary women writers (such as Margaret Atwood or Anne
Carson) who deal with classical topics? Our conference hopes to
explore these questions, as well as more broadly theoretical issues.

Potential topics could include, but are not limited to:
• Intertextual heroines in antiquity
• The reception of female authors in the ancient world
• The use of a “female voice” by male authors
• The interaction of historical and literary female characters
• Women and the history of classical scholarship
• Women and the acquisition of Classical education in the 19th and
early 20th centuries
• Gender and the contemporary reception of the classics

We welcome submissions from students of all areas of classical
studies, as well as students from other disciplines, including art
history, history, archaeology, philosophy, comparative literature,
religious studies, women’s and gender studies, drama, and politics.

A conference website will be set up shortly, and interested students
are invited to join the conference’s Facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=112388917878

This is a preliminary notice. A call for papers and a submission
deadline will be circulated in the fall. Queries and indications of
interest should be directed to the conference coordinators:
Cillian O’Hogan, cillian.ohogan AT utoronto.ca
Melanie Racette-Campbell, melanie.racette.campbell AT utoronto.ca