CALL FOR PAPERS

Greenscapes ~ Sense and Meaning:
Fields of Dreams (Landscapes of Myth and Imagination)
October 1-3, 2009, Brock University

Our landscapes have long been the unconscious repository of cultural hopes, fears and desires. >From the Garden of Eden to Aboriginal Dreamtime, societies have perceived their surrounding natural environment to express cultural values reflected in their myths, legends, sacred texts and belief systems. The occupation, transition, or representation of landscape constitutes an imaginative exercise for both subject and object. Yet imagination is not a consciously controllable process, and dreams can be unsettling portents as well as expressions of wish-fulfillment. We welcome papers that explore landscapes of myth and imagination in real and virtual sites, literary texts, images, and installations and invite proposals on the following topics:

•         Landscapes of allusion (texts, myths, folktales, legends)
•         Sacred and Secular Utopias
•         Profane imagination: ruin, decay and social transgression
•         Gardens of the ‘first time’: origin myths and social legends
•         Dream landscapes: fear, desire, and exploring the unconscious

Please send abstracts (up to 250 words) and a brief biography to greenscapes AT brocku.ca by February 20, 2009.

The conference will take place at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario. Giles Blunt, author of Forty Words for Sorrow, The Delicate Storm, and Black Fly Season, will deliver the opening keynote on the subject of landscape and fiction.

Conference organizers: Keri Cronin (Visual Arts, Brock University), David Galbraith (Royal Botanical Gardens), Sharilyn J. Ingram (School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University), Leah Knight (English Language and Literature, Brock University), Katharine T. von Stackelberg (Classics, Brock University).

We acknowledge with gratitude the support of the Humanities Research Institute at Brock University.

• Conversational Latin Seminar in Lexington for 2009

[This looks severely interesting]:

UCL Department of Greek & Latin
presents
THE ANCIENT WORLD IN SILENT CINEMA

an afternoon & evening of silent film screenings with piano accompaniment and related talks on
Wednesday 28 January 2009,
at UCL Bloomsbury Theatre, 15 Gordon Street, London, WC1H 0AH
http://www.thebloomsbury.com/

The event is open to the public and admission is free.
ALL ARE WELCOME.

This is a remarkable opportunity. Almost all of the films to be screened
are not available for purchase in video or DVD format, and are rarely
shown in cinemas. They survive as viewing copies in film archives. Further
details about the films and our event can be found at
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/GrandLat/newsandevents/events/silentcinema

THE AFTERNOON: ANCIENT GREECE

2-4pm Screenings of silent films set in ancient Greece
Amour d’esclave (Fr 1907) 7 mins
La Morte di Socrate (IT 1909) 5mins
Elettra (IT 1909) 6 mins
La Légende de Midas (Fr 1910) 8 mins
La Caduta di Troia (IT 1910) 19 mins
L’Odissea (IT 1911) 29 mins
The Private Life of Helen of Troy (US 1927)

4-4.30 pm Tea/Coffee break

4.30-5.45pm Speakers
Pantelis Michelakis (Department of Classics & Ancient History, University
of Bristol) and Ian Christie (School of History of Art, Film and Visual
Media, Birkbeck, University of London)

THE EVENING: ANCIENT ROME
7.15-7.45pm Speaker
Maria Wyke (Department of Greek & Latin, University College London)

8pm-10pm Screenings of silent films set in ancient Rome
Julius Caesar (US 1908 ) 9 mins
Giulio Cesare (IT 1909) 7 mins
Cléopatre (Fr 1910) 9 mins
Lo Schiavo di Cartagine (IT 1910) 8 mins
Dall’amore al martirio (IT 1910) 11 mins
Patrizia e Schiava  (IT 1919) 11 mins
A Roman Scandal (US 1924) 6 mins
Jone O Gli Ultimi Giorni di Pompei (IT 1913) 43 mins

THE ANCIENT WORLD IN SILENT CINEMA (2)
A second afternoon & evening of silent film screenings with piano
accompaniment and related talks will be held on Monday 22 June 2009, from
2-6 and 7-10 pm at the Bloomsbury Theatre. On that occasion the films will
have settings in Biblical or Near Eastern Antiquity.
details tba

ORGANISERS
Maria Wyke (Department of Greek and Latin, UCL)
Pantelis Michelakis (Department of Classics, University of Bristol)

These two events are linked to the launch of an international,
collaborative research project on antiquity in silent cinema, which Maria
Wyke and Pantelis Michelakis are planning. If you have any queries about
the research project or about these events please contact  Maria Wyke
(m.wyke AT ucl.ac.uk).
We are deeply indebted to the BFI National Archive and its staff for their
investigations on our behalf, and for the loan of these precious films
from their collection.

Supported by UCL Futures
– Encouraging Innovation & Opportunities

Some upcoming calls for papers/conferences with a web presence:

• Call for Submission for Volume 13 (2009) on GREEK TRAGEDY (Animus … a philosophy journal from Canada)

• Gods of SMALL THINGS (UReading … still in the CFP stage)

• Homo Romanus Graeca Oratione: from 2nd to 4th centuries: 300 years of Greek culture in the Roman Empire (Barcelona)

• XI Convegno Plutarcheo (pdf .. Milan)

IRONY AND THE IRONIC IN CLASSICAL LITERATURE
A conference at the University of Exeter, 1st-4th September 2009

Call for Papers

What precisely do we mean when we talk about ‘irony’?

The term ‘irony’ is often bandied about – as a glance at the Index of any commentary or literary-critical monograph will attest. Both ‘irony’ and the adjective ‘ironic’ are frequently (perhaps too frequently?) used as catch-all terms to describe a variety of effects within literary works, including unusual shifts of tone, slippage between overt and implied meanings, transparently deceptive or disingenuous narrative strategies and other self-conscious collusions with an implied reader or audience. But what sort of a phenomenon are we actually dealing with? Is irony (as many have thought) by its very nature too subtle, subjective or elusive a concept to be theorized? And what are its broader implications, once it has been identified?

These questions stimulate cross-cultural analysis, as irony may be understood differently in ancient and modern cultures. Although ironical effects, such as those outlined above, are found in abundance in ancient Greek and Roman literature, they were not theorized as such in antiquity. Instead, eiro-neia and related words were used to denote a more specific and limited mode of behaviour than we associate with irony in modern thought. Indeed, given that it has been thought that an ‘ironical’ outlook is a peculiarly modern concept, is our application of this outlook to ancient texts fundamentally anachronistic? What is the value of the concepts of irony and the ironic from the historicist perspective?

This conference is designed to open up the debate about this challenging concept, and to stimulate discussion from a diversity of perspectives. It is anticipated that proceedings of the conference will be published in book form. We invite papers dealing with irony in Greek and Latin literature, and we welcome also theoretical and comparative approaches to the concepts of irony and the ironic. Topics for consideration may include:

* frameworks for understanding ‘the ironic’, especially ancient conceptualizations of ‘the ironic’
* patterns of irony and the ironic
* irony and other strategies of collusion (e.g. parody, allusion, innuendo)
* the dynamics of irony – how is it effected?
* irony and intentionality – embedded or imported meanings?
* irony and the reader/reading-cultures in antiquity
* irony as a political, rhetorical or pedagogical strategy
* the politics of irony: exclusivity and esotericism – who’s ‘in’, who’s ‘out’?

Please send abstracts of ca. 300 words to one of the conference-organisers (below) by 28th February.

Matthew Wright (M.Wright AT exeter.ac.uk)

Karen Ní Mheallaigh (K.Ni-Mheallaigh AT exeter.ac.uk)