Seen on the Classicists list:

Abstract submissions are invited for consideration by the convenors of a
conference titled "Genre in the Ancient World", hosted by the
Department of Classics and Ancient History, at the University of Sydney,
Australia.

The conference welcomes papers on any topic relating to genre in the
Ancient World. Additionally, there will be panel sessions on particular
topics of interest to genre. Professor John Frow of University of

Melbourne will be keynote speaker.

Abstract Submissions: Please submit an abstract of not more than 200
words and a very brief biography to the convenors by Monday, 30th
November 2009. Email to: genre2010 AT gmail.com.

Presentations: Papers of 30 min. duration followed by 15 min. discussion
time at the conclusion of each session.

Conference Sessions: Thursday 8th to Friday 9th April 2010.
A reception will be held on 8th and conference dinner on 9th.

If you do not wish to present a paper but still want to attend, please
let us know by reply email. Registration forms will be sent through
shortly.

For further information, please contact:

Frances Muecke and Michelle Borg,
Department of Classics and Ancient History
Email: genre2010 AT gmail.com

seen on the Classicists list …

"Girls in Antiquity"

Interdisciplinary Conference at the DAI Berlin
8th – 10th October 2010

This conference is about girls, from early Neolithic times to Late Antiquity, within the geographical limits of Europe, Egypt, and the Ancient Near East.

The following range of topics will be adressed:

Definition. "Girls" are female children and teenagers, who have not yet received the status of an adult woman. In contemporary German society this status is legally achieved by the age of 18, socially by economic independence (with a proper job) or by biological reproduction (own children). But which were the specific cultural rites de passages for the transition of female children to adulthood in antiquity? Was it the wedding as a rule, as is suggested by literary sources both from Greece and Rome? For prehistoric societies, however, an institution like marriage can only to be postulated.

Birth-/Family planning. "Lost girls" are a phenomenon peculiar to contemporary society, most notably in Asian countries: female fetuses are aborted because of their sex, female newborns are killed or so badly cared for, that they do not survive. Was there anything comparable in ancient cultures? And if so, what kind of sources can account for such a practice? What do we know at all about mortality of female children and the handling of the deceased?

Development of gender identity. Were children introduced to social roles early on according to their biological sex? Classical Athenian art for example represents children shortly after crawling age in a gender specific way. Are there any cultures that classified children as asexual creatures at an early age? And if so, until what age was is customary to do so?

Material culture and social practice. What kind of clothing, hairdo, jewelry, or make-up was characteristic for girls in specific cultures? What kinds of objects did they handle and which social practices did they perform? In which social spaces were they supposed to stay? What can we deduce from the evidence with regard to the scopes of girls in different cultures or to their own thoughts, wishes and beliefs?

Discourse. Which discourses about girls can be conceived on the basis of literary and archaeological sources? In our society infant girls are much more sexualized than boys of the same age (e.g. by clothing, which emphasizes female attraction or on the contrary explicitly veils it, such as the scarf). Does this already apply to antiquity and how can we prove it? A further modern phenomenon is the devaluation of girls’ culture to that of boys, resulting from general gender hierarchy. (A girl playing football may be something special in the positive sense – but a boy dreaming of pink dresses, is probably embarrasing for his parents.) How was this issue perceived in ancient cultures?

Research and media. At first sight, girls seem to be the big invisibles in research, twice marginalized because of their sex and their age, their status of »not yet«. Is that true? And what about the presence and depiction of (pre)historic girls in popular media, such as schoolbooks or movies?

Contributions
We are looking for papers from ancient historians, philologists and archaeologists, and explicitly also from young scholars. Contributions from other disciplines such as social or educational sciences or ethnology are very welcome, provided they contribute to a better understanding of concepts of girlhood in antiquity.

Papers presentations are limited to 30 minutes followed by a discussion of 15 minutes.
Conference languages are German and English.
Proposals with working title, an abstract of maximum 250 words as well as address and a short academic CV should be sent via email by 31th October 2009 to the organizers:

Dr. Susanne Moraw
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut
Podbielskiallee 69-71
14195 Berlin
smo AT dainst.de

Anna Kieburg, M.A.
Institut für Kunstgeschichte und Archäologie der Universität Bonn
Am Hofgarten 21
53113 Bonn
a.kieburg AT web.de

Organisation
The conference will be organized by »FemArc. Network of women in archaeology« (www.femarc.de) and is taking place 8th – 10th October 2010 at the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) in Berlin.

Subject to our funding expenses for travel and accommodation might be refundable.
Further information concerning the program will be provided by the end of 2009.
Publication of the conference is planned in the series »Frauen – Forschung – Archäologie«
(http://www.femarc.de/hgg/index.html).

seen on Ioudaios:

JUDAEA AND ROME IN COINS, 65 BCE TO 135 CE

An International Conference

13 & 14 September 2010

A two-day conference with the theme Judaea and Rome in Coins, 65 BCE to 135
AD, will be held at the premises of Spink and Son Ltd. in London on Monday
13th and Tuesday 14th September 2010.

This event, co-ordinated by David Jacobson, Nikos Kokkinos and Philip
Skingley and co-sponsored by the Institute of Jewish Studies at University
College London (UCL), follows two previous London conferences (‘The World of
the Herods and Nabataeans’ in 2001 and ‘Herod and Augustus’ in 2005), which
were successful events and have become reference points.

The period covered spans the Roman conquest of Judaea by Pompey through to
the last major Jewish uprising against Roman rule under Simon Bar-Kokhba,
and encompasses the birth of Christianity. The past few decades have seen
considerable advances in numismatic scholarship dealing with this period,
partly stimulated by archaeological exploration and numerous coin finds,
which have shed new light on the historical events and associated political,
social and economic issues. We should like to use this conference to
exchange views and analyse the fresh developments from new perspectives.

Well-known experts in the fields of Roman and Jewish numismatics will be
delivering lectures in four sessions over two days, these are:

Michel Amandry, Dan Barag, Julian Bowsher, Andrew Burnett, Kevin Butcher,
Ted Buttrey, David Hendin, David Jacobson, Morten H rning Jensen, Nikos
Kokkinos, Larry Kreitzer, Kenneth Lonnqvist, Sam Moorehead and Danny Syon.

Hospitality in the form of buffet lunches and refreshments will be provided.
The Conference Proceedings will be published.

A small related exhibition will be on display in the Spink showrooms for the
duration of the Conference and a visit to the British Museum is scheduled
where a further related exhibition is planned.

The cost of participation for the four sessions is 80 or 50 for full-time
students. To register your interest in this event please contact Philip
Skingley at Spink and Son Ltd., 69 Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, London WC1B
4ET.

Tel. +44 207 563 4045 / Fax. +44 207 563 4068 or email: pskingley AT spink.com

Due to limitations of capacity it is important to register your intention to
attend early. A 25% deposit payable now will secure a place on a first-come
first-served basis. Budget accommodation in University student halls of
residence is expected to be available to attendees. If you require such
accommodation, please indicate this in your registration of interest, but
this needs to be notified before the end of the year.

Seen on various lists …

Conference: “Antiquity in Film – Gender on Screen”
December 10-12 2009 at the Freie Universitaet, Berlin, Germany

Contact: AntikfilmGender AT gmx.de

Prof. Dr. Almut-Barbara Renger
Department of History and Cultural Sciences
Institute for Religious Studies
Chair in Ancient Religion, Culture and the History of their Reception
Gosslerstr. 2-4, 14195 Berlin

This conference shall explore reception(s) of antiquity in film – from the silent era through to sound film and to present-day blockbusters. Film adaptations of ancient figures and material and what they have to say about the present, about culture and society will be examined in light of the specific significance of gender. Aside from the return of antiquity in cinema, we can also see an increasing interest in antiquity on television, in the form of miniseries or fantasy series.

“Gender” here is an analytic category that will serve as our methodological basis. This thus assumes that “femininity” and “masculinity” are not biologically determined, transhistorical constants. As this project is based primarily on the body and sexuality and their representations and reproductions in film, they will be examined as parts of gender constructs in the sense of nature as cultural text.

Approaches in recent film and gender theory look at the performance and negotiation not only of gender, but also of cultural background and national identities, using concepts such as “bricolage” to bring their various facets in contemporary film into sharper focus. The body’s boundaries and the transgression of these boundaries, e.g. in scenes of excessive violence, are often dominant motifs. In the last few years, the literature of antiquity has been adapted to film and turned into blockbuster Hollywood films, yet this has rarely been discussed. It is therefore all the more important to examine the significance of these films and their socio-political function, and thus develop interpretations that reach beyond what has been considered analytical common sense for the past several years.

To date, a few Classics scholars have written articles dealing with this topic area. These have touched on the historical figure of Cleopatra as film heroine and symbol of oriental culture, and the mythical figure of Helen in film history, as well as the connection between gender on one hand and domination, barbarism and slavery on the other. With this in mind, we will also look at gendered codes of representations of state sovereignty, (post-) colonial power relations and expressions of cultural superiority.

The goal of this conference is to attract papers that demonstrate to what degree the representations – constructions, destructions and reconstructions – of gender and gender roles have changed along with the changes in film (and societal structures).

We particularly welcome projects from the following fields:
– History, Classics and Modern Languages and Literature
– Cultural Studies, Religious Studies
– Theatre, Film and Media Studies, Art History
– Philosophy, Theology and Political Science

In addition to issues in gender theory, we also want to address:
– analyses of films based on media theories
– the Production Code, a mode of self-censorship current in film studios as a response to pressures from social and religious lobbyists
– the effects of the Cold War and the end of it on antiquity in film
– new approaches in Gender Studies such as Postcolonial Theory, Critical Orientalism and Critical Racism

We aim to publish representative results of the conference’s profile in an anthology.
Abstracts should not exceed 1 page and should be submitted together with a short biography of a few lines by 1 August 2009.

We are looking forward to an inspiring conference and lively discussion!

… seen on the Classicists list:

Fifth Bristol Colloquium on Classical Myth

Classical Myth and Psychoanalysis
To be held in London, at the School of Advanced Studies, Malet Street, 3rd-6th September 2009.
Keynote speakers
Page DuBois (University of California, San Diego)
Jonathan Lear (University of Chicago)
Robert Segal (University of Aberdeen) – with response by Meg Harris Williams
Sonu Shamdasani (Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College London)
Speakers include
Richard Armstrong (University of Houston, Texas)
Erik Gunderson (University of Toronto)
Micaela Janan (Duke University)
Paul Allen Miller (University of South Carolina)
Daniel Orrels (University of Warwick)
Mark Payne (University of Chicago)
Jill Scott (Queens University, Ontario)
Bennett Simon (Harvard Medical School)
Gregory Staley (University of Maryland)
Victoria Wohl (University of Toronto)
Full conference fee £70; one day fee £20.
Schedule and booking form available at http://www.bristol.ac.uk/humanities/events/myth.html
Enquiries to Ellen O’Gorman & Vanda Zajko
e.c.ogorman AT bris.ac.uk; v.zajko AT bris.ac.uk