d.m. Dirk Held

From the New York Times:

HELD–Dirk tom Dieck, Of Westerly RI, was the Elizabeth S. Kruidenier ’48 Professor of Classics at Connecticut College in New London, CT. He took his A.B. and Ph.D in Classics at Brown University. In 1971, he joined the faculty of Connecticut College, where he served until his death from a cerebral hemorrhage on March 19, 2012. He held the Chair of the Classics Department for thirty-two years. Professor Held presented and/or published over one hundred learned papers on a wide variety of topics. He was widely known and respected for the quality of his scholarship and his dedication to the field. Colleague Robert Proctor, Professor of Italian, remarked, “Dirk Held lived the liberal arts ideal. His scholarship was both profound and wide-ranging, from Plato’s understanding of love to Nietzsche and the reception of classical antiquity in the modern world. He was a modern exemplar of ancient Roman humanitas: culture, kindness, generosity, and wit.” In 2007 he was awarded the Helen B. Regan Faculty Leadership Award. He was a superb teacher whose students often became his lifelong friends. Dirk was secretary and presiding officer of the Ariston Club, a society of prominent professionals founded in 1900 to foster literary culture in the New London area, where he was his black tie, witty, raconteur best. Born on March 24, 1939, he was the son of the late Oskar Edouard Held and Ethel Crofton Hunt. He grew up in Rumson, NJ. He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Elizabeth Candace Allen; daughters Elizabeth Jensen and Kristin Held; grandsons Nicholas Thomson and Martin Jensen; and his brother Robert Crofton Held. He was descended from Pierre S. DuPont and was buried in the family cemetery, DuPont de Nemours, in Wilmington, DE. A Memorial Service will be held in Harkness Chapel, Connecticut College, on Friday, April 27th at 4pm, followed by a reception.

via: Dirk Held (New York Times)

L’Année Philologique Threatened?!!

Seen on a couple of lists now:

Chers Collègues,

L’Année Philologique, outil irremplaçable de bibliographie de l’Antiquité gréco-latine, est menacée à très court terme de disparaître dans sa forme actuelle, voire de cesser sa parution.

La cause de cette menace est simple : la rédaction allemande de L’Année philologique, la Zweigstelle Heidelberg, doit fermer ses portes à la fin de l’année civile 2012 si aucune source de financement durable n’est trouvée.

Cette fermeture programmée aurait, si elle prenait effet à la date prévue, des conséquences désastreuses sur l’ensemble du projet : avec elle c’est toute la recherche en langue allemande, dont chacun sait l’importance pour les humanités classiques, qui cesserait d’être couverte par notre publication.

Si aucune solution n’est trouvée, les conséquences se résumeront à la transformation d’un projet à haute valeur scientifique en un moteur de recherche au rabais ou la disparition pure et simple de la publication.

Je me permets donc de vous inviter à signer en ligne et à faire circuler la pétition où figurent tous les détails concernant les motifs de cette fermeture, ainsi que ses implications concrètes, en vous rendant à l’adresse suivante : http://anphil.org/

Cordialement à tous,

Laurent Capron
Éditeur à l’Année Philologique

CONF: Menander in Contexts

Seen on the Classicists list

Menander in Contexts

23 – 25 July 2012
Lincoln Hall, University of Nottingham

It is now over a century since Menander made his first great step back from
the shades with the publication of the Cairo codex, and over half a century
since we were first able to read one of his plays virtually complete; since
that time our knowledge of his work has been continually enhanced by further
papyrus discoveries. This international conference is designed to examine
and explore the Menander we know today in the light of the various literary,
intellectual and social contexts in which they can be viewed, more
particularly in relation to

· the society, culture and politics of the post-Alexander decades

· the intellectual currents of the period

· literary precursors and intertexts, especially in comedy and
tragedy

· the reception of Menander, in antiquity and in modern times

For more information see the conference website at

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/classics/research/conferences/menander/menander.aspx

To book, follow the link below:

http://store.nottingham.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=2&prodid=42&deptid=9&catid=1

CONF: Bodies of evidence: redefining approaches to the anatomical offering

Seen on the Classicists list:

BODIES OF EVIDENCE: REDEFINING APPROACHES TO THE ANATOMICAL OFFERING

An international conference at the British School at Rome,
Tuesday 5th June 2012

From Pharaonic Egypt to Roman Italy and from Classical Greece to the
Byzantine world, anatomical votives have performed a continuous, if poorly
understood, role in ritual and votive practice. Modern scholarship has
categorised as ‘anatomical’ a range of ex-votos, made largely but not
exclusively from terracotta, which depict parts of the body. These arms,
legs, eyes, fingers, hands, feet, uteri, genitals, internal organs and
other recognisable parts of the internal and external body have attracted
much attention from scholars exploring both past religion and health
alike. Nevertheless, the category of ‘anatomical offering’ remains
noticeably ill-defined and remains to be integrated fully into the study
of ritual, artefacts and the body. This conference will ask how we should
define and interpret the ‘anatomical’ votive, bringing together scholars
working upon the anatomical offering in its broadest sense order to
explore and refine our understanding of this phenomenon. What were
anatomical votives for, what did they represent to those who dedicated,
encountered or made them, and what factors influenced the selection of a
particular item? How have they been implicated in broader discourses
concerning medicine and the human body? In particular it will be concerned
with what these offerings reveal, not only about past religious and
medical contexts and practices, but also about identity, society, politics
and concepts or constructions of the human body.

PROGRAMME:

09.00 Registration and introduction

09.30 Letizia Ceccarelli (University of Cambridge)
‘Donaria: Anatomical Terracotta Offerings from a Votive Deposit at
Fidenae’

10.00 Jessica Hughes (Open University)
‘A Farewell to Arms: Votive Body Parts and Rites of Passage in
Hellenistic Italy’

10.30 Tea and coffee

11.00 Georgia Petridou (Humboldt University)
‘Demeter as an Ophthalmologist? Eye Votives and the Cult of
Demeter and Kore’

11.30 Ergün Lafli (Dokuz Eylül University)
‘Votive Ear Plaques from Asia Minor’

12.00 Matthias Recke (University of Giessen)
‘A Deeper Insight: Etruscan Anatomical Votives with
Representations of Intestines’

12.30-14.00 Lunch

14.00 Rebecca Flemming (Jesus College Cambridge)
‘Wombs for the Gods’

14.30 Olivier de Cazanove (University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne)
‘Anatomical Votives (and Swaddled Babies): from Republican Italy
to Roman Gaul’

15.00 Fay Glinister (University of Cambridge)
‘Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em’

15.30 Tea and coffee

16.00 Ellen Adams (Kings College London)
‘Fragmentation and the Body’s Boundaries: Classical Antiquities
and Human Remains in the British Enlightenment’

16.30 Jennifer Grove (University of Exeter)
‘Roman Votive Genitalia in the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum’

17.00 Discussion / Break

18.00 Keynote address: Laurent Haumesser (Musée du Louvre)
‘The Open Man: A Large Etruscan Anatomical Bust from the Musée du
Louvre’

19.00 Reception

Attendance at the conference is free of charge. If you would like to
attend or receive further information please register your interest by
contacting either of the organisers: Jane Draycott (j.draycott AT bsrome.it)
or Emma-Jayne Graham (eg153 AT leicester.ac.uk).

Reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature

A couple of items within our purview: