The Ohio State University's 8th Annual Graduate Colloquium in Classics
Post Scriptum ? Questioning the Status of Greek and Latin Literature in Late Antiquity
Saturday, April 17, 2010
500 Word Abstracts due December 4, 2009
Many Greek and Latin authors of Late Antiquity situated themselves self-consciously within the classical literary tradition that was dominated by the works of Homer and Vergil. These authors read and studied classical literature, they were influenced by classical styles, and they quoted and alluded to classical authors. They wrote in ancient Greek dialects which had long died out in the common vernacular and imitated the Latin literary language of late Republican and Augustan Rome. They discussed classical themes and understood the events of their own time in relation to those of classical antiquity. Despite all this, scholarship has generally limited the corpus of classical literature to a time frame that stretches from Homer to (at the latest) Apuleius. Despite the imagined literary continuity, the literature of Late Antiquity has often been termed 'classicizing', rather than 'classical'.
This colloquium aims to interrogate the classification and periodization of ancient literature. What makes one period 'classical' and the other 'classicizing' ? What changed after the 2nd century that caused these Greek and Latin works to no longer be considered part of the classical corpus ? Are there differences significant enough to justify this distinction ? Can one apply literary theories developed within the field of Classics to Late Antique literature ? Does the rise of Christianity determine whether scholars can call these authors classical ? What differentiates the poetry of Prudentius from his classical predecessors ? Why are the epigrams of Agathias and Paul Silentiarius not Classical like those of Meleager ? What makes an author as steeped in the classical tradition as Procopius 'classicizing' ? We have listed a few of the ways in which this issue may be explored. In no way is this colloquium limited to the questions posed above. We encourage submissions which examine these issues from a wide range of literary genres, including, but not limited to, Late Antique poetry, history, philosophy, politics, biography, panegyric, and novels in both Greek and Latin.
Please send abstracts of no more than 500 words in length as an attachment to Erica Kallis at kallis.4@osu.edu In the body of your email provide your name, paper title, institution, department, mailing address, phone number and email address. You may also send your abstract via post. If you do so, please include your information on a separate piece of paper. Your name should not appear on your abstract. All abstracts must be received no later than December 4, 2009.
Department of Greek and Latin
ATTN : Graduate Colloquium
414 University Hall
230 North Oval Mall
Columbus, OH 43210
Please direct any questions to mccloskey.32@osu.edu or flores.105@osu.edu