seen on various lists:

PLUTARCH AMONG THE BARBARIANS
Inaugural Meeting of the North American Sections of the International Plutarch Society

At the Banff Centre
Banff, Alberta, Canada
http://www.banffcentre.ca/

March 13-16, 2014

Please send abstracts of 300-400 words to Noreen Humble (nmhumble AT ucalgary.ca) by April 30, 2013

Cultural identity is an important concern for writers of the second sophistic, but there has yet to be a concerted consideration of Plutarch’s views on the matter. He is represented primarily by chapters in Goldhill’s Being Greek Under Rome (2001) and Swain’s Hellenism and Empire (1996). Yet Plutarch is especially important in this regard, since he lived during the period when the empire was really establishing an identity for itself (Julio-Claudians > Flavians > "Good Emperors") and he helped to usher in the second sophistic, where cultural identity, conceptions of the Greek past, and an understanding of the Greco-Roman present were being worked out in literature and rhetoric. Both the Lives and the Moralia obviously play an important role in our understanding of Imperial Greek impressions of the past and the present, and one of the aims of the conference will also be to consider Plutarch’s oeuvre as a whole in this regard.

Topics for consideration may include (but are not confined to): Plutarch’s exploration of his own cultural identity as well as what it means to be Greek, what constitutes barbarism in Plutarch’s eyes, Plutarch and the otherness of Sparta, Plutarch on the Macedonians, Plutarch compared with other second sophistic writers.

Confirmed plenary speakers:
Philip Stadter (University of North Carolina, US)
Anthony Podlecki (University of British Columbia, CA)
Christopher Pelling (Oxford University, UK)
Frances Titchener (Utah State University, US)

Organizing Committee:
Jeff Beneker (jbeneker AT wisc.edu)

Craig Cooper (craigc AT nipissingu.ca)
Noreen Humble (nmhumble AT ucalgary.ca)
Frances Titchener (frances.titchener ATusu.edu)