Friends of Classics Talk

Cornelia Lauf, John Cabot University

"Contemporary Curating in Ancient Rome"

Monday, January 27, 5:00pm

Cocke Hall, Gibson Room

reception to follow

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Tuesday Classics Luncheon

Elizabeth Meyer, University of Virginia

Tuesday, February 4, lunch at 12:30, talk at 1:00, and adjournment at 1:45

Room E1 of the Garden Room

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Janet Downie, UNC Chapel Hill

Friday, February 21 

Details TBA

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Ruth Bielfeldt, LMU Munich

Tuesday, March 17

Details TBA

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Tim Rood, Oxford University

Thursday, March 19 

Details TBA

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24th Annual Classics Graduate Student Colloquium, University of Virginia

WARNING: Storm Approaching

Weather, the Environment, and Natural Disasters in the Ancient Mediterranean

Saturday, March 21 

Details TBA

Keynote Speaker: Clara Bosak-Schroeder (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Scientific, aesthetic, and religious conceptions of weather events appear throughout Classical antiquity, as the Greeks and Romans attempted to make sense of environmental phenomena. Often, these events were explained as expressions of divine wrath or favor. Storms and natural disasters figured as literary devices, for example to delay narrative action or as metaphors for the cyclic nature of human life. Climate, broadly defined, was thought to determine national character, and weather played a critical role in military expeditions. Recently, scholars have made considerable advances in applying principles of bioarchaeology to the study of the ancient world. Hand in hand with these, theorists working with the tools of ecocriticism envision a humanities broader than humans, accounting for the whole natural world.

The study of weather and its public is particularly relevant today, as the severity of natural disasters increases annually. We face dramatic changes to the environment on a global scale, and the global response to these changes is a contentious and urgent matter. For this conference, we seek academic papers exploring natural disasters and environmental change in ancient Greece and Rome. We also welcome submissions from scholars whose work deals with the broader Mediterranean world, which includes but is not limited to Mesopotamia, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and North Africa. Some possible topics are:

-Storms and natural phenomena as literary motifs, metaphors, and/or similes

-Archaeological evidence for natural disasters or climate change

-Conceptions of environmental determinism

-The depiction of weather events in visual art

-The role of the gods in determining the weather and cult activity seeking to affect the weather or environment

-Historical consequences of weather and climate

-The relationship of ancient studies to the environmental humanities

-The present legacies of ancient environments