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A final reminder that the Call For Papers closes on 30 September.
Apologies for cross-posting. Please distribute to anyone who might be interested.
Swords, Sorcery, Sandals and Space: The Fantastika and the Classical World. A Science Fiction Foundation Conference
29 June – 1 July 2013

At The Foresight Centre, University of Liverpool

Guests of Honour/Plenary Speakers: Edith Hall, Nick Lowe, and Catherynne M. Valente

Call for papers

The culture of the Classical world continues to shape that of the modern West. Those studying the Fan­tastika (science fiction, fantasy and horror) know that the genres have some of their strongest roots in the literature of the Graeco-Roman world (Homer’s Odyssey, Lucian’s True History). At the same time, scholars of Classical Reception are increasingly investigating all aspects of popular culture, and have be­gun looking at science fiction. However, scholars of the one are not often enough in contact with scholars of the other. This conference aims to bridge the divide, and provide a forum in which sf and Classical Reception scholars can meet and exchange ideas.

We invite proposals for papers (20 minutes plus discussion) or themed panels of three or four papers from a wide range of disciplines (including Science Fiction, Classical Reception and Literature), from aca­demics, students, fans, and anyone else interested, on any aspect of the interaction between the Classi­cal world of Greece and Rome (including post-Roman Britain and the Byzantine empire) and science fiction, fantasy and horror. We are looking for papers on Classical elements in modern (post-1800) examples of the Fantastika, and on science fictional or fantas­tic elements in Classical literature. We are particularly interested in papers addressing literary science fiction or fantasy, where we feel investigations of the interaction with the ancient world are relatively rare. But we also welcome papers on film, television, radio, comics, games, or fan culture.

Please send proposals to conferences AT sf-foundation.org<mailto:conferences AT sf-foundation.org>, to arrive by 30 September 2012. Paper pro­posals should be no more than 300 words. Themed panels should also include an introduction to the panel, of no more than 300 words. Please include the name of the author/panel convener, and contact details.

Any enquires should be sent to the e-mail address above.

Swords, Sorcery, Sandals and Space is organised by the Science Fiction Foundation, with the co-operation of the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool.

Tony Keen

Chair, 2013 Science Fiction Foundation Conference

Conference Website: http://www.sf-foundation.org/conference

Conference Facebook Page<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Swords-Sorcery-Sandals-and-Space-The-Fantastika-and-the-Classical-World/208433862562456?sk=wall>: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Swords-Sorcery-Sandals-and-Space-The-Fantastika-and-the-Classical-World/208433862562456?sk=wall

Conference Official Twitter Feed<http://twitter.com/#!/SFFConf2013>: http://twitter.com/#!/SFFConf2013

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In/fertility and Sacred Space: From Antiquity to the Early Modern

Interdisciplinary Conference to be held in the University of Cambridge, July 15th-16th 2013

Call for papers (deadline 30 September 2012)

Concerns about fertility and children have been (and still are) common reasons for visiting, and more generally engaging with, the sacred spaces—sanctuaries and shrines, groves and grottoes—of many religions and cultures. The narratives, objects, and rituals associated with places of particular access to the divine across a wide chronological and geographical range testify to this insistent human need: stories of miraculous births, assorted reproductive ex-votos, and prayers for the sterile are, for instance, all prominent parts of this landscape. But, thus far, this phenomenon has not received the focused attention it deserves.

Relations between human reproduction, divinity and sacred space are therefore at the centre of this interdisciplinary conference. We hope to have thematic panels which cover the following issues:
· Gender and Reproduction: are requests for divine assistance made by women or men, or both? To female deities and saints or not?
· Fertility and Healing: do healing sanctuaries and saints specialise in fertility? Or is reproduction joined with other concerns?
· Reproductive objects: do concerns about fertility have particular affinities with particular kinds of artefacts or materials?
· Narrative reproduction: is there anything distinctive about stories of miraculous births in miracle collections?
There will also be sessions that address questions of continuity and change, similarity and difference, across time and space; and we warmly invite proposals for papers on all these topics and more, from as wide a range of perspectives as possible.

Abstracts of not more than 500 words (for 20 min papers) should be sent to Fay Glinister (fg310 AT cam.ac.uk) by 30th September 2012.

Organising Committee: Rebecca Flemming, Fay Glinister, Peter Jones, Lauren Kassell (University of Cambridge)

(This conference is organised under the auspices of the Wellcome Trust strategic award in the history of medicine on Generation to Reproduction (University of Cambridge); and with the support of the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge)

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University of Nottingham, Department of Classics
Research Workshops 2012-13, Semester 1

Tuesday, 2nd October (in association with the Centre for Ancient Drama and its Reception, University of Nottingham):
Matthew Wright (Exeter)—‘Greek Tragedy and Quotation Culture’

Tuesday, 9th October (in association with the Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies, University of Nottingham):
Dr Jim Roy (Nottingham)—’Around Mount Lykaion from the Bronze Age to the Roman Empire’

Tuesday, 16th October (in association with the Institute for the Study of Slavery, University of Nottingham):
Robin Osborne (Cambridge)—‘The History of Slavery Written on the Body’

*Tuesday, 23rd October, 5.30pm (a meeting of the Classical Association Nottingham Branch):
Peter Toth (Warburg Institute, London) ‘The Hidden History of Classical Drama Between Greco-Roman Theatre and Medieval Stage’

Tuesday, 30th October (in association with the Centre for Ancient Drama and its Reception, University of Nottingham):
Sarah Miles (Durham)—‘Comic Drama and the Popularising of Attic Tragedy: a Case for Attic Pop. Culture?’

Tuesday, 13th November:
Kostas Vlassopoulos (Nottingham)–‘The Barbarian Repertoire in Greek Culture’

Tuesday, 20th November:
Alex Mullen (Oxford)—‘Languages in Roman Britain’

Tuesday, 27th November (in association with the Centre for Ancient Drama and its Reception, University of Nottingham):
Lucy Jackson (Oxford)—‘Plato’s Other Choruses: beyond the Timaeus, Phaedrus and ἀπαίδευτος ἀχόρευτος’

Tuesday, 4th December:
Emily Kneebone (Cambridge)—’Generic Ventriloquism in Later Greek Epic’

Tuesday, 11th December (in association with the Centre for Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, University of Nottingham):
Shaun Tougher (Cardiff)—‘Eunuchs as Generals in the Later Roman Empire: the Case of Narses’

* Please note the slightly later start time of this meeting.

Papers are followed by discussion. All are welcome. Workshops take place on Tuesdays starting at 5p.m., in the Humanities Building, Room A3. Please note that the Classical Association meeting (Tuesday, 23rd October) begins at 5.30pm.

Enquiries should be directed to: Esther Eidinow, School of Humanities, University of Nottingham University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD. Tel.: 0115 951 4810; e-mail: esther.eidinow AT nottingham.ac. uk. For details about the Classical Association Nottingham Branch, please contact Nikolai Lipatov, n.lipatov AT gmail.com.

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Classics Research Seminar, and other classical seminar events
School of History, Classics, and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh

SEMESTER 1, 2012-13

Unless otherwise indicated, seminars begin at 5.10 on Wednesdays in the Meadows Lecture Theatre, William Robertson Wing, Teviot Place, and are followed by drinks in the McMillan Room. All are welcome!

Wednesday 19 September, 6 pm:
Meeting of the Classical Association of Scotland, Edinburgh and South East Centre
Professor Judith Barringer (University of Edinburgh)
The Changing Image of Zeus at Olympia

Wednesday 26 September
Professor Jon Solomon (University of Illinois)
Greco-Roman Music in the 1890s: From Excavation to the Olympic Congress to Broadway Spectacular

Thursday 27 September, 1-2 pm, G.16 William Robertson Wing: Informal Talk
Professor Joseph Day (Wabash College)
Informal talk on Greek Epigram

Thursday 27 September, G.16, William Robertson Wing:
Archaeology Research Seminar
Professor Leslie Preston Day (Wabash College)
From Palace to Polis on Crete: The Evidence from Kavousi

Wednesday 3 October
Professor Roland Mayer (King?s College London)
Roman Ruin-mindedness

Wednesday 10 October
Dr Diana Rodríguez Pérez (University of Edinburgh)
Eagle and Snake in the Ancient Greek World: Similes and Warnings

Thursday 11 October at 5 pm in the Sydney Smith Lecture Theatre, Teviot Place:
Meeting of the Gender History Network Work-in-Progress Seminar
Dr Glenys Davies (University of Edinburgh)
Body Language, the Romans and Gender
Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (University of Edinburgh)
?Salome, Nice Girl?: Rita Hayworth?s Biblical Vamp

Wednesday 17 October
Dr Beth Munro (University of Edinburgh)
Social Perceptions of Recycling in the Roman World

Wednesday 24 October
Dr Benjamin Gray (University of Edinburgh)
Exile and the Fault Lines of Greek Citizenship

Wednesday 31 October
Professor Tim Whitmarsh (Corpus Christi College, Oxford)
Adventures of the Solymoi: Homeric Jews

Wednesday 7 November
Dr Myles Lavan (University of St Andrews)
Manumission, Enfranchisement, and the Claudian Census Figure

Tuesday 13 November, 6 pm, Teviot Lecture Theatre, Teviot Place:
Memorandum of Understanding Special Seminar in History, Classics and Archaeology
Professor Makoto Anzai (Hokkaido University)
An Epic Hero Performing a Heroic Epic: Iliad 9.182-195

Wednesday 14 November
Dr Peter Thonemann (Wadham College, Oxford)
Phrygia: An Anarchist History

Wednesday 21 November
Dr Susan Walker (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
Saints and Salvation: Late Roman Gold-Glass in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Wednesday 28 November, 6 pm: Meeting of the Classical Association of Scotland
Dr Sarah Miles (Durham University)
Comic Drama and the Popularising of Attic Tragedy: A Case for Attic Pop. Culture?

Wednesday 5 December in Teviot Lecture Theatre, Teviot Place
Professor Tony Woodman (University of Virginia)
Fragments from the Past: Some Early Roman Historians

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CULTURAL F(R)ICTIONS IN HELLENISTIC LITERATURE (University of Exeter 27th-28th September 2012)

On 27th-28th September, the Centre for Hellenistic and Roman-Greek Culture and Society, in the Department of Classics and Ancient History (Exeter), will host a conference to celebrate Hellenistic literature and raise provocative new questions about the interaction between Greek and other cultures through a series of research presentations and reading-workshops. We particularly welcome postgraduate students who are working in this subject to attend. Details of the programme are included below. The conference is generously supported by funding from the Leventis Foundation, as part of an initiative to promote research on the impact of Greek culture on non-Greek cultures.

There is no charge to attend the conference, but to register your intention to attend, please contact me at the email address below.

Thanks to the generosity of the Classical Association, bursaries are available to postgraduate students to assist with travel-costs to attend the conference; enquiries to K.Ni-Mheallaigh AT ex.ac.uk

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

THURSDAY 27th SEPTEMBER
3-4.30pm Reading workshop, Longus Daphnis and Chloe, led by Professor Ewen Bowie
4.30-5pm Tea/coffee
5-7pm Professor Flora Manakidou (Democritus University ofThrace), ‘Callimachus’ Iambi: modes of travelling and politics’.

FRIDAY 28th SEPTEMBER
9.30-10.15 Dr Karen Ní Mheallaigh (Exeter), ‘Textual transmission as cultural exchange: the story of the Kyranides.’
10.30-11.15 Dr Ivana Petrovic (Durham), ‘The representation of court society in Hellenistic poetry: Persia, the Greek world, Rome.’
11.30-12 Coffee/tea
12-12.45 Professor Tim Whitmarsh (Oxford), ‘Cultural Hybridity: the Alexander Romance’.
1-2 Lunch
2-2.30 Daniele Sberna (Durham), ‘Λεπτός/lepidus: proclamations of liberty in Callimachus and Catullus.’
2.45-3.15 Christian Djurslev (Exeter) ‘Alexander Kerasphoros – the horned Alexander in Hellenistic culture and beyond.’
3.30-4.15 Professor Barbara Borg (Exeter), ‘A cup of stories: art and text on the ‘Homeric bowls’.
4.15-4.45 Tea/coffee
4.45-5.30 Professor Ewen Bowie (Oxford), ‘Philicus’ Hymn to Demeter.’
5.45-6.45 Reading-workshop, led by Dr Ivana Petrovic: ps.Longinus, On the Sublime
Digression: Genius versus Mediocrity (32.8-36.4)
Appendix 44.1-end.