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Previous seminars from classic seminars

2022

Tracing Mimes in Theocritus’ Non-Bucolic Idylls

Wona Lee (Universitetet i Oslo)

Time and place: Dec. 13, 2022 4:15 PM – 6:00 PM

Abstract: Wona Lee presents her MA project: One of the characteristic features that defines Hellenistic poetry is the mixture of genres that had been separate in earlier times, and Theocritus was no exception in challenging and renovating them in his poetry. This presentation aims to give a preliminary analysis of the genres, structure and language of Theocritus’ non-bucolic Idylls, also known as urban mimes, with a focus on how Theocritus both drew on and deviated from a formally established tradition of mimic poetry.

The Classics Seminar is open to everyone interested. Welcome!

Organizer
Silvio Bär


A Voyage to the Otherworld: An Exploration of the Otherworldly Literary Tradition between Latin and Irish

Erlend Myklebust (Universitetet i Oslo)

Time and place: Nov. 29, 2022

Abstract: Erlend Myklebust presents his MA project: During the medieval period, Latin literary works of Irish origin concerning the Otherworld enjoyed great popularity on the continent. Alongside this Latin tradition, however, a vernacular tradition developed, both influenced by and influencing the Latin. This presentation aims to make a preliminary examination of the two traditions, their relationship, and their sources.


A Futurist Germania? Translation, Canon and Ideology in Fascist Italy

Paola d’Andrea (Universitetet i Oslo)

Time and place: Nov. 22, 2022

Abstract: In 1928, with Italy in the grip of Fascism, the Futurist leader Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) published a translation of Tacitus’ Germania within a brand-new series of Latin Classics destined for the public of the “new Italy”. This presentation will focus on theoretical premises and translation issues of such a precisely calibrated operation of reception, aimed at placing Tacitus within the canon of avant-garde literature.


Grasping the Pillars of Herakles: A Long Stretch or an Atlantean Feat?

Sofia Heim (Universitetet i Oslo)

Time and place: Nov. 15, 2022

Abstract: This presentation offers a preliminary analysis of extreme Western boundaries in early Greek poetry. The paper focuses mainly on the travelling figure of Herakles and his Pillars with added considerations of similar structures, such as the Atlantean columns, in the poems of Pindar and early choral lyric.


Between Mortal and Divine: The Status of "Daimones" in Early Greek Thought

Jonathan Griffiths (Universitetet i Oslo)

Time and place: Nov. 8, 2022 4:15 PM – 6:00 PM, GM 652

Abstract: This presentation considers the notion of daimones in early Greek literature, philosophy and religion. A survey of the different roles and functions attributed to daimones will be given, ranging from Hesiod and Pindar to Empedocles, Plato and the Derveni Papyrus. It will be argued that, despite these various guises, a certain conceptual unity underlies the early Greek notion of the daimon.


Fornyelse av grammatisk terminologi i "Latinsk grammatikk" 2022

Vibeke Roggen (Universitetet i Oslo)

Time and place: Oct. 11, 2022 4:15 PM – 6:00 PM, GM 652

Abstract: Roggen vil vise hvorfor hun i sin grammatikk har fornyet terminologien og definert enkelte termer annerledes enn vanlig i latinske og norske grammatikker. Noen fenomener mangler navn (ikke-deponente verb), andre har misvisende eller uprofesjonelle betegnelser eller er definert i strid med språklig praksis: predikativt attributt, direkte og indirekte objekt, ja-/nei-spørsmål, apposisjon, frase, tredje konjugasjon.


Var Homer romanforfatter?

Eirik Welo (Universitetet i Oslo)

Time and place: Oct. 4, 2022 4:15 PM – 6:00 PM, GM 652

Abstract: Iliaden og Odysseen er episke dikt og forteller lange historier. Foredraget tar opp forholdet mellom særlig Odysseen og andre narrative sjangrer, både i antikken og i dag. Kan vi lese Odysseen som en roman, og hva skjer hvis vi gjør det?

Dette seminaret arrangeres i samarbeid mellom forskergruppen «Novel and Epic, Ancient and Modern» (NEAM) og Klassisk Seminar. Klassisk Seminar er åpent for alle interesserte. Velkommen!


Evidentiality in Ancient Greek Literature: The case of που in Attic Dialogue

Raf van Rooy (Katolieke Universiteit Leuven & Universitetet i Oslo)

Time and place: Sep. 27, 2022 4:15 PM – 6:00 PM, GM 652

Abstract: In this presentation, Raf Van Rooy offers an introduction to the modern linguistic concept of evidentiality, which refers to the expression of information source in language. It is argued that this category is highly relevant for understanding Ancient Greek language and literature. After a general introduction to the phenomenon, the particle που in Attic dialogue is treated as a case study.


Epic Poetry Around and Beyond Homer: The Epic Cycle and Historical Epic Poetry

Laura Lulli (Università Degli Studi Dell’Aquila)

Time and place: Sep. 14, 2022 12:15 PM – 2:00 PM, VB auditorium 1

This guest lecture is jointly organized between the lecture course ANT1100 “Antikkens verden” and the Classics Seminar. It is open to everyone interested. Welcome!


Hints of Allusive Modes and Intertextualities in Archaic and Classical Greek Epic and Elegy

Laura Lulli (Università Degli Studi Dell’Aquila)

Time and place: Sep. 13, 2022 4:15 PM – 6:00 PM, GM 652

Abstract: Among the archaic and classical Greek literary genres, the most evidently interrelated ones have always appeared to be epic and elegy. To better highlight this complex relationship, a reading of crucial passages of epic and elegiac poetry will be provided through the lens of intertextuality, an interpretative tool already known in ancient scholarship and recently reused by some of the most advanced contemporary critics.


Unearthing the Music of the Past: The Ancient Musical Scores

Christos Terzis (Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut)

Time and place: Sep. 6, 2022 4:15 PM – 6:00 PM, GM 652

Abstract: A new digital edition of all surviving documents of ancient music will be presented, revealing available text and music, accompanied by images of the sources, brief commentaries, transcriptions to modern stave notation, and eventually, the option of listening to these musical fragments at the correct ancient pitch.

This guest lecture is jointly organized between the Oslo Papyrus Collection and the Classics Seminar. It is open to everyone interested. Welcome!


David Grimaldi (University of Oslo)

David Grimaldi presents his thesis project for his Master's Degree in Ancient Greek.

Time and place: May 31, 2022

Galen’s medical writings had a tremendous influence on posterity, both in the West and in the East. Though the scope of his writings is great, Galen was very aware of the importance to a doctor of a proper training in anatomy, to the point that he once claimed that in order to pick out the best doctor, a patient should first assess “how wide is his knowledge and how penetrative is his training in anatomy”.

In accordance with this, Galen wrote prolifically on anatomy, and his surviving anatomical works cover most areas of the body several times over. They vary, however, in their presentation, aim and target audience: his major anatomical works are intended as exhaustive treatments of all parts of the body, while his minor works are highly structured and condensed presentations of invidual organ systems.

What can we learn from these texts about the guiding principles of Galen’s pedagogy? Why do doctors need to know anatomy, and how can they go about acquiring this knowledge in the best and most efficient way? How and by whom did Galen mean for his texts to be read; in what order, in which particular settings, and with what aids? How can Galen’s teaching help a doctor in applying theoretical knowledge to the aid of very real patients?

This talk will serve as a brief introduction to Galen’s anatomical teaching, in part based on my BA thesis, before I will show how select significant passages of Galen’s anatomical corpus may help us in exploring these questions further.


Knut Olav Sandvik (Universitetet i Oslo)

Knut Olav Sandvik presents his thesis for the Master's Degree in Latin: "Iocosa Imago: Resonant Forms in Horace"

Time and place: May 10, 2022 


Paola d'Andrea (University of Oslo)

Paola d'Andrea: Ad usum Novae Romae: two vates for Fascist Italy

Time and place: Apr. 26, 2022

This paper sheds some new light on the relatively recent topic of Classical Reception and Italian Fascism. It does so through the analysis of two interrelated case studies in which Latin, both as language and literature, plays a pivotal role in public material culture, as well as in the written literary medium.

First, the role of Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863–1938) will be assessed, both as the official vates of post-Unitarian Italy and the leader of the Free State on Fiume (1919), in his crafting Latin tags that were soon to infiltrate the phraseology of Fascism in its visual and material culture.

The second example will address a Neo-Latin ode to Mussolini (1928) published in Chile by (the today much less known) Ippolito Galante. Composed in alcaic metre, the text can be read, in many respects, as resulting from D’Annunzio’s pioneering aesthetic, targeting a highly cultivated readership at the intersection between the Italian expat community and the local elite.

Based on a semiotic approach, the presentation will show how the reusage and dissemination of Latin in the Fascist age resulted in a vague but highly evocative ‘aura’, upon which the regime rooted its propaganda machine. Particular aspects of ‘Fascist Latin’ will be examined, i.e. transition from an elite- to a mass-circulation; adaptability to different target audiences; communicative purposes. This will help us answering the question why this Latin exerted a long-term impact in Italian public culture well beyond the Fascist period, as it surfaces today in all sorts of contexts, from political lingo to social media, provoking opposed reactions.


Aske Damtoft Poulsen (Aalborg University)

Aske Damtoft Poulsen: All Roads Lead to Ruin: Teleology and counterfactuality in Sallust’s history of Rome

Time and place: Mar. 29, 2022

Abstract

This paper will explore the various futures – both real and imagined – at play in Sallust’s texts and investigate what these may tell us about his idea(s) of history. In the first part, I will discuss towards what future(s) Sallust’s texts direct their readers: Of all the events that postdate their formal temporal endpoints, which does the historian posit as their telos? In the second part, I will identify and analyse passages in which the historian and his characters suggest (or shut down) alternatives to what came to pass, so-called counterfactuals: When and how might history have taken another turn, and what would have been the consequences? I will not argue that Sallust consciously inserted an alternative future for Rome in his texts, merely that alternative futures may be identified and extracted from them. In the third part, I will discuss how Sallust’s engagements with future time – in the shape of both telos and counterfactuality – may help shed light on the idea(s) of history that underpin his historiographical project. I will argue that Sallust’s works pull their readers towards the civil wars of his own youth and the triumviral proscriptions the ravaged Italy during the time of writing, and that what-if moments in the Sallustian corpus, contrary to what one might expect, tend to reinforce rather than weaken the sensation that Roman history was inexorably being drawn towards this predetermined endpoint.

The seminar will take place physically and digitally via Zoom. A link to the meeting will be distributed via the seminar mailing list the day before. To be added to the mailing list or receive the link, please contact the organizer.


Ed Bispham (University of Oxford)

Ed Bispham: The Cult of Mefitis

Time and place: Mar. 22, 2022 

Ed Bispham is Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History, Brasenose College, Oxford Stipendiary Lecturer in Ancient History, St Anne's College, Oxford University, and Lecturer in Ancient History, Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford.

The seminar is hosted by the Classics Seminar in cooperation with the IAKH Research Group in Ancient History and Classical Archaeology. 

The seminar will take place physically with streaming via Zoom. A link to the meeting will be distributed via the seminar mailing list the day before. To be added to the mailing list or receive the link, please contact the organizer.


Thea Selliaas Thorsen (NTNU)

Thea Selliaas Thorsen: Dating Corinna after Lobel, Page and West.

Time and place: Mar. 8, 2022

Before the twentieth century, Corinna was known as ‘divine’  and depicted as superior over Pindar (c. 518-438 BCE), both in poetic expertise and poetic contest(s). The sources that attest to this tradition include Plutarch (De glor. Ath. 4.347f–348a), Pausanias (22.2-4),  Aelian VH (13.25),  Vita Pindari Metrica (9-11), Suda (K 2087) and more. Yet, after the editio princeps of the newly discovered fragments of Corinna in the Berlin Papyrus (1907), Lobel (1930), Page (1953) and West (1970, 1982, 1990, 1996) questioned the traditional date of Corinna, and hence her potential superiority over Pindar, with lasting impact on subsequent scholarship. This paper follows some traces in this reception history of Corinna, while trying to strike some new approaches to her poetic legacy.


Matthew Kinloch (University of Oslo)

Matthew Kinloch: Narrative Hierarchies: Minor Characters in Byzantine and Medieval History Writing.

Time and place: Feb. 22, 2022

The seminar will take place digitally via Zoom or physically with streaming via Zoom. A link to the meeting will be distributed via the seminar mailing list the day before. To be added to the mailing list or receive the link, please contact the organizer.


Silvio Bär (University of Oslo)

Silvio Bär, leader of the research group Novel and Epic, Ancient and Modern: Odyssey 5: A Narratological Analysis.

Time and place: Feb. 8, 2022

The seminar will take place digitally via Zoom. A link to the meeting will be distributed via the seminar mailing list the day before. To be added to the mailing list or receive the link, please contact the organizer.


Ildar Garipzanov (University of Oslo)

Ildar Garipzanov  presents his ERC Advanced Grant project, MINiTEXTS – "Minuscule Texts: Marginalized Voices in Early Medieval Latin Culture (c. 700–c. 1000)". 

Time and place: Jan. 25, 2022

The seminar will take place digitally via Zoom. A link to the meeting will be distributed via the seminar mailing list the day before. To be added to the mailing list or receive the link, please contact the organizer.


2021

Knut Olav Sandvik (University of Oslo)

Tid og sted: 23. nov. 2021 16:15–18:00, Georg Morgenstiernes hus, seminarrom 203 og Zoom

Knut Olav Sandvik (master student, Latin) will discuss his Master thesis «Metrical Limitations in Horace's Odes».

In his Odes, Horace treats Aeolic verse in a radically stricter way than his Roman and Greek predecessors do. The seminar will focus on some possible causes and effects of this practice.

The presentation will be held in English.


Nicolò Bettegazzi (University of Groningen)

Tid og sted: 26. okt. 2021 16:15–18:00, Zoom

Nicolò Bettegazzi will discuss the use of Latin at the Mostra Augustea della Romanità (1937/38), a subject related to his ongoing PhD thesis.

Fascism and the Language of Rome’s Universality: Latin Language and Literature at the Mostra Augustea della Romanità (1937/1938)

On 23 September 1937, the Fascist regime inaugurated celebrations for the bimillenary anniversary of the birth of Emperor Augustus (Bimillenario Augusteo). Taking place just one year after the conquest of Ethiopia, the Bimillenario provided the regime with a timely occasion to promote the idea of a spiritual and historical link between Augustan Rome and Fascist Italy. In this context, the regime sponsored a range of projects and activities relating to Augustus and his reign.

In this talk, I will focus on a particularly prominent initiative, the Mostra Augustea della Romanità (“Augustan Exhibition of Romanness”) in order to explore how the Latin language and literature were used along the exhibition’s itinerary. Specifically, I will argue that the selective use of the Latin literary tradition contributed to constructing Italian Fascism as a continuation, and culmination, of the ‘universal historical mission’ that Fascist ideologues saw both for the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. Thus, I will show that the Latin language at the Mostra Augustea was made to represent an ideological and historical mission more complex than just the ‘renewal’ of Augustan Rome under Mussolini’s regime.

Organizer
Han Lamers and Anastasia Maravela


Brent Nongbri (Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society)

Tid og sted: 12. okt. 2021 16:15–18:00, Zoom

Prof. Brent Nongbri will discuss the the early history of the codex and introduce us to his ongoing project EthiCodex.

The Early History of the Codex: A New Methodology and Ethics for Manuscript Studies (EthiCodex)
There is no shortage of theories about how and why the codex replaced the scroll as the main vehicle for the transmission of literature in the Roman Empire. Yet, the study of the early development of the codex has been hindered by a lack of securely dated samples among the surviving codices and codex fragments. Most samples have been assigned dates only on the basis of palaeography, the analysis of handwriting, without reference to other codicological features or other kinds of analysis. Radiocarbon analysis offers a promising way to increase the number of dated samples. Although it is a destructive technology, recent studies demonstrate that successful analysis can be carried out on very small samples. Another complicating factor is the fact that many early codices and codex fragments are of unknown provenance, and most reputable radiocarbon labs now have strict policies about analyzing unprovenanced cultural heritage artifacts. EthiCodex is a project designed to address these issues by 1) investigating the provenance of the earliest codices, 2) identifying those that were legally acquired, 3) funding radiocarbon analysis to more securely date legally acquired samples, and 4) using that information to provide a more reliable set of data for discussing the development of the technology of the early codex.

Organizer
Han Lamers and Anastasia Maravela


Christopher Siwicki (The Norwegian Institute in Rome)

Tid og sted: 28. sep. 2021 16:15–18:00, Zoom

Dr. Christopher Siwicki will discuss the treatment and perception of historic buildings in imperial Rome, which he also explored in his recent book Architectural Restoration and Heritage in Imperial Rome (OUP 2020).

Attitudes to Architectural Restoration in Ancient Rome
This paper addresses the treatment and perception of historic buildings in imperial Rome, examining the ways in which public monuments were restored. Through analysing how the design, materiality, and appearance of buildings developed with successive restorations, as well as responses to such activity in contemporary literature, the case is made for the existence of a consistent approach to the treatment of built heritage between the first century BC and second century AD.

Organizer
Han Lamers and Anastasia Maravela


Mark Janse (University of Ghent/Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard)

Tid og sted: 14. sep. 2021 16:15–18:00, Zoom

Prof. Mark Janse will offer a rhetorical and cognitive-linguistic analysis of Agamemnon's speech at Iliad 2.110-141, based on an article recently published in Symbolae Osloenses.

How to get your troops to go to battle by sending them home: A rhetorical and cognitive-linguistic analysis of Agamemnon’s speech at Iliad 2.110-141
In this seminar I show how Agamemnon’s reverse psychology rhetoric is meticulously crafted in his famous διάπειρα speech at Il. 2.110-141. Following the cognitive-linguistic approach to Homeric discourse presented in Janse (2020), I analyze the rhetorical force of the speech in terms of its colometry, word order and information structure.

Background reading: Janse, M. 2020. “Phrasing Homer: A Cognitive-Linguistic Approach to Homeric Versification”, Symbolae Osloenses 94, 2-32.

Organizer
Han Lamers and Anastasia Maravela


Raf Van Rooy (University of Oslo)

Tid og sted: 31. aug. 2021 16:15–18:00, Zoom

This semester's first Classics Seminar will be held by our Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow Dr. Raf Van Rooy. He will speak about Ippolita Maria Sforza as a student of Greek in Early 1460s Milan.

Triangular Teaching?
Ippolita Maria Sforza as a Female Student of Greek in Early 1460s Milan
When the language and literature of ancient Greece were being rehabilitated during the Renaissance, the students were first and foremost aspiring humanists, almost as a rule men. An early exception was Ippolita Maria Sforza (1445–1484), the eldest daughter of the Duke of Milan Francesco I Sforza and a highly intelligent woman who produced numerous vernacular and Latin letters, three Latin orations, and a Latin poem. Two versions of the Greek grammar by the Byzantine émigré Constantine Lascaris (1434–1501) are dedicated to the young Ippolita, the one an autograph by Lascaris in the original Greek from the years 1462–65, the other a Latin verse translation of Lascaris’ grammar by the humanist Bonino Mombrizio (1424–ca. ?1478/82), dedicated to Ippolita in the years 1463–65.
 
In my presentation I will argue that Lascaris tutored Ippolita in early 1460s Milan, a teaching relationship in which Ippolita’s Latin teacher Baldo Martorelli took up a pivotal role by noting down Latin translations in Ippolita’s copy of Lascaris grammar. I will relate this to traces of Greek learning in Ippolita’s extant writings. In addition to discussing the triangular teaching relationship between Ippolita, Martorelli, and Lascaris, I will address two questions to the grammars by Lascaris and Mombrizio. Firstly, how did the Greek grammarian and his translator envisage Ippolita as a learner of Greek? Secondly, in what ways did this differ from approaches focused on (groups of) male students, if at all? My answers will be based on the (partly unedited) grammar manuscripts, both their dedicatory prologues and the contents of the grammars.

Organizer
Han Lamers and Anastasia Maravela


Astrid Grindeland on Lucian's poetics

Tid og sted: 11. mai 2021 16:15–18:00, zoom

At the next Classics seminar, Astrid Grindeland (MA student in Greek, University of Oslo) will speak on her ongoing work on Lucian. 

Organizer
borismas@ifikk.uio.no


Christopher Faraone (University of Chicago) om Simonides and Callimachus

Tid og sted: 14. apr. 2021 16:15–18:00, zoom

On Wednesday (NB irregular day of the week), April 14, 2021, the Classics Seminar will host Professor Christopher Faraone (University of Chicago).

The title of his talk will be: Simonides' Epitaph: Sphragis, Pseudepigraphy, Archaism and the Elegiac Stanza in Callimachus’ Aitia Fragment 64 (Pf.).

Due to a temporary problem with the klassisk-seminar email list, the handout will be made available right before the talk. 

Christopher Faraone is Edward Olson Professor of Classics in the Department of Classics and the College at the University of Chicago. One of the leading authorities on Ancient Greek poetry, magic and religion, Professor Faraone is the author and editor of many books, including Ancient Greek Love Magic (Harvard University Press, 1999; modern Greek translation: 2004; French translation: 2006), The Stanzaic Architecture of Archaic Greek Elegy (Oxford University Press 2008), The Transformation of Greek Amulets in Roman Imperial Times (Philadelphia, 2019), and Hexametrical Genres from Homer to Theocritus Hexametrical Genres from Homer to Theocritus (forthcoming with OUP).

Arrangør

Boris Maslov


Caspar Meyer (Bard College) on ancient lithic technologies

Tid og sted: 23. mars 2021 16:15–18:00, zoom

At the next meeting of the Classics seminar Professor Caspar Meyer (Bard Graduate Center) will speak on "Making and meaning: early Attic stelai as lithic technology." The event will take place on zoom. The link will be sent out to Classics seminar list subscribers.

Stelai are usually studied in disconnected disciplinary categories according to the content of the texts and images they bear. Art historians tend to focus on gravestones, votive reliefs and documentary stelai that feature images; political historians concentrate on decrees, honorific commemorations and lists of payments or inventories; and literary historians naturally prefer epigrams and dedications composed in verse. In his talk, Professor Meyer will cut across these traditional genres and types to understand how stelai in late Archaic Athens came to present varying ontological conditions for perceiving incisions as textual or pictorial marks. The discussion will draw on technological analyses and experimental reconstruction of ancient carving techniques to bring out how planar surfaces and incised marks constituted each other and their perception. The aim of exploring stelai from the point of view of their makers is to show that the knowledge invested in making artefacts is a key aspect of understanding their meaning and context. The presented material is part of a broader project which seeks to recover the far-reaching ramifications of technological skill in ancient society, from the level of individual gestures and intentions all the way to the social and ecological impact of procuring raw materials.

Caspar Meyer is Professor at Bard Graduate Center in New York City, author of Greco- Scythian art and the birth of Eurasia: from Classical antiquity to Russian modernity (Oxford UP, 2013) and many articles on Greek art and its reception, as well as editor of West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture.

Organizer
Classics seminar


Federico Aurora on ancient writing cultures in the digital era

Tid og sted: 9. mars 2021 16:15–18:00, zoom

On March 9, Federico Aurora (University of Oslo) will speak on: "ENCODE-project. Spreading digital methods in Classics." 

The talk will present the international project "ENCODE Bridging the <gap> in ancient writing cultures, enhance competences in the digital era" (https://site.unibo.it/encode/en/). The project's main aims are to promote the use of digital methods and tools in the preservation and study of ancient written texts and to establish a collaborative and shared platform for the teaching and learning of the relevant competences.

The project is structured around a series of conferences and training workshops open
to both member institutions and external participants. The workshops will give participants either introductory or advanced training in the use of different sets of digital methods and tools applied to the study of ancient texts. The conferences will be an occasion for reflection and exchange of experiences, with a special focus on learning and teaching.

The main objective of these activities, however, is to give theoretical material and
practical experience to support the ultimate goal of the project, that is the creation of an online set of open access resources: a reviewed, reasoned and updated database of teaching modules (basic and advanced, 5-10 ECTS) – completed with detailed guidelines and an introductory MOOC – and a network platform of researchers, students and institutions. The University of Oslo takes part in ENCODE through the Humanities and Social Sciences Library (HumSam) and a core group of participants across three departments (IFIKK, ILN, IFI), but participation in its activities are open to interested faculty and students.

Organizer
Classics Seminar


Alexander Nikolaev (Boston University): Greek etymology in the 21st century

Tid og sted: 16. feb. 2021 16:15–18:00, Zoom only

On February 16, Alexander Nikolaev (Associate Professor of Classical Studies and Linguistics at Boston University) will speak on the challenges currently facing Greek etymological research—and faced by scholars and students who seek reliable information on etymology of Ancient Greek words.

All subscribers to the klassisk-seminar list will receive a zoom link for this talk. Please subscribe or contact Boris Maslov if you wish to attend the talk.

The year 2010 saw the publication of Etymological Dictionary of Greek (EDG) by Robert S. P. Beekes. Written in English by one of the leading practitioners of Indo-European studies and published by Brill, this 1800-page dictionary was bound to become the standard reference work for classicists who will rely on it for their knowledge of the history of Greek vocabulary. At the same time, it has been pointed out on multiple occasions that this dictionary is deeply flawed; unfortunately, for a sobering assessment of the EDG interested classicists should go to professional journals that may lie outside of their purview. This talk is addressed to classical scholars interested in Greek etymology who are unsure whether or not the EDG has now replaced Chantraine’s or Frisk’s dictionaries.

In this talk, Prof. Nikolaev will first discuss specific methodologically significant drawbacks of the EDG illustrating problematic areas with examples, and then present a selection of new etymologies from his forthcoming volume Greek Etymological Notes.

As the talk will demonstrate, contrary to Beekes’ “Pan-Pre-Greek” approach, the traditional comparative method still has a lot to offer for the study of the origins of Ancient Greek vocabulary.

Professor Nikolaev obtained his doctorate degree from Harvard University in 2012 and has published profusely on Greek, Latin, Luwian, Hittite, and Indo-European etymology. His work appeared in Glotta, Indogermanische Forschungen, Die Sprache, Classical Philology, American Journal of Philology,  Journal of Hellenic Studies, Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology, among other venues.

Organizer
Boris Maslov


Yelena Baraz (Princeton University) on Lucan and Cicero

Tid og sted: 26. jan. 2021 16:15–18:00, Zoom only

On January 26, the Classics seminar welcomes our first speaker this Spring, Yelena Baraz, Kennedy Foundation Professor of Latin Language and Literature and Professor of Classics at Princeton University. Professor Baraz holds her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and has a made a name for herself as an authority on Cicero; she is the author of A Written Republic: The Cultural Politics of Cicero's Philosophy (2012), Reading Roman Pride (2020), and of many articles on Roman literature. 

Professor Baraz will speak on Lucan’s Cicero: Dismembering a Legend

Organizer
Boris Maslov


2020

Title to be announced

Professor Silvio Bär, IFIKK.

Time and place: May 12, 2020 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Møterom 452, Georg Morgenstiernes hus


Varro’s strategies of quotation in De Lingua Latina

Professor Diana Spencer, University of Birmingham.

Time and place: Mar. 10, 2020 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Meeting room 452, Georg Morgenstiernes hus


The Metamorphosis of Semele: The Reception of the Myth of Semele in Handel’s Oratorio

MA student Victoria Mostue, IFIKK: Presentation of MA thesis.

Time and place: Feb. 25, 2020 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Meeting room 452, Georg Morgenstiernes hus


What Really Happened on Helikon: A Political Reading of Hesiod

Associate professor Boris Maslov

Note the time!

Time and place: Jan. 21, 2020 5:15 PM–7:00 PM, Meeting room 452, Georg Morgenstiernes hus

The cultural and specifically political functions that various sub-forms of early Greek hexameter poetry performed in the 8th-6th centuries BCE remain clouded in uncertainty. In this talk, I will offer a speculative reading of different parts of Hesiod’s transmitted corpus, considered in relation to the “Homeric” epic poems, with the goal of clarifying its oddly heterogeneous composition, the startling prominence of the speaking persona in the Theogony, and the pseudo-biographism of the Works and Days. The key to the new interpretation is found in the suture between the two proems to the Muses that open the Theogony. 


Use of electronic resources in learning and teaching classical languages

Project presentation (in Norwegian) by Senior lecturer Eirik Welo, Research assistants Astrid Grindeland (MA-student, Greek) and Silje Marie Andreassen (BA-student, Latin), and Associate professor Vibeke Roggen.

Time and place: Jan. 14, 2020 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Room 203, Georg Morgenstiernes hus


2019

Professor Joshua Scodel on Milton and Classical Traditions of Care

Time and place: Nov. 12, 2019 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes 452

Joshua Scodel, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago, will speak on "Paradise Lost and Classical Traditions of Care"

This talk will examine “care” and “secure” as related keywords in "Paradise Lost" that vitally shape Milton’s depiction of Edenic life and its loss. “Care” has resonances ranging from negative “sorrow, anxiety” to positive “caution, heedfulness,” while “secure” can mean blessedly “carefree” or recklessly “careless.” With revisionary neoclassicism Milton engages with analogous terms and concepts in ancient epic and classical thought. In Edenic Adam’s turn from cosmic speculation to daily life, Milton reconceives a classical and Renaissance humanism contrast between anxious cares for the faraway and salutary care for the near; in Adam and Eve’s argument whether to separate that precedes their fall, Milton radically revises classical epics’ gendered treatments of cares; while in his depiction of Edenic sleep, Milton reimagines the classical epic topos of sleeping guards in order to dramatize the vexed relationship between divine care and human “security.”


Prof. Maria Wyke on Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra

Time and place: Nov. 6, 2019 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, GM 452

Maria Wyke (University College, London)

Lessons in Leadership & History: Bernard Shaw’s Caesar on Stage and Screen

First performed in 1899, Shaw’s play Caesar and Cleopatra offers lessons in leadership and the presentation of history. A weary elder statesman, this Julius Caesar promotes the honourable exercise of power. His troublesome young pupil Cleopatra, however, sees through his self-construction as a quasi-mystical authority and yearns for love. This talk explores how Shaw’s Caesar engages with contemporary concerns about British imperial identity and how his lessons take on new meaning when re-performed on stage and screen up to the end of the Second World War.


Victoria Mostue on Handel's Semele

Time and place: Oct. 29, 2019 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, GM 452

Victoria Mostue (MA candidate in Latin, University of Oslo) will present her ongoing research for her MA thesis, tentatively entitled "Semele Transformed: Handel’s reception of the myth of Semele". The abstract for the seminar follows. All are welcome to attend.

In stark contrast to the sacred music which had dominated previous centuries, the composers of the 17th and 18th century started looking to pagan antiquity for inspiration. From Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (1607) and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (1689) to Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride (1779), this period is rich with musical works inspired by classical myths and literature. One such work is Handel’s Semele (1744), an oratorio which tells the story of her relationship with Jupiter and her subsequent downfall orchestrated by Juno. For my MA thesis I plan to analyse the character of Semele, both in the classical sources and in the oratorio, and then compare them to one another. In addition, I intend to trace the chain of receptions between antiquity and Handel. In doing so I hope not only to discover how the portrayal of Semele as a character has been changed from antiquity to the Baroque era, but also to discuss how our perception of her is altered through the oratorio.


Christian H. Bull on Plato in Coptic

Time and place: Oct. 8, 2019 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, GM 452

At the next Classics seminar, on October 8, Christian H. Bull (University of Oslo) will speak on "Plato in Upper Egypt: Ideological Interpolations in a Coptic translation of Plato’s Republic." The abstract follows. All are welcome to attend.

Coptic, the last phase of the autochthonous Egyptian language developed in the third century CE, was used almost exclusively for Christian texts; translations of the Bible were of course of prime importance for evangelization in the Egyptian countryside, but sectarian literature was also translated, most famously the Manichaean texts from Medinet Madi and the Nag Hammadi Codices. The latter is known as a main repository of so-called Gnostic texts, but also includes a brief, unattributed excerpt from Plato’s Republic (588b-589b), so garbled that it took decades for researchers to realize its identity. In his paper Christian Bull argues that the Coptic translator of Plato not only misunderstood the original, but also intentionally interpolated it so as to reflect an Origenistic Christian viewpoint. This will in turn shed some light on the Christian reception of Plato in Late Antique Upper Egypt.


Margalit Finkelberg on Homer and Traditional Poetics

Time and place: Oct. 1, 2019 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes 452

On October 1, Margalit Finkelberg, Professor Emerita of Classics  at Tel Aviv University, will present on "Homer and Traditional Poetics". 

The Homeric poems exhibit a coherent set of ideas relating to both theory and practice of poetry. These ideas closely correspond to those expressed by Southslavic traditional poets. Yet, while the Southslavic poets’ views are reflected in their practice, this is not so in the case of Homer: the Homeric poems do not conform to the view of poetry they overtly profess. This raises the question of whether the Iliad and the Odyssey can be considered traditional poems in the proper sense of the word.

Margalit Finkelberg is Professor of Classics (Emerita) at Tel Aviv University. She is the author of numerous studies on Homer and Greek epic tradition, including The Birth of Literary Fiction in Ancient Greece (1998) and Greeks and Pre-Greeks. Aegean Prehistory and Greek Heroic Tradition (2005), and the editor of the three-volume Homer Encyclopedia (2011). Professor Finkelberg is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the recipient of the Rothschild Prize in the Humanities for 2012. 


Prof. Giovan Battista D'Alessio on the Problem of the First Person

Time and place: Sep. 3, 2019 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes 452

At the first meeting of the Classics seminar this academic year Professor Giovan Battista D'Alessio (University of Naples « Frederick II ») will speak on "The Problem of the First Person" in mediated communication and performance poetry. The focus of the talk will be on Ancient Greek poetry, and on Pindar in particular, with parallels adduced from other traditions.

Professor D'Alessio is a specialist on Archaic Greek and Hellenistic poetry, papyrology, and textual criticism. His previous work on the intricacies  of first-person reference in Pindar has molded the current consensus on the intertwining of choral and individual voices in Archaic Greek poetry. At the seminar, Prof. D'Alessio will present his new work on the first person, now considered in the light of comparative evidence.

The seminar is open to the public. 


Leon Wash on Empedocles and the Concept of Nature

Time and place: May 13, 2019 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, GM 452

At the last meeting of the Classics seminar this semester, Leon Wash (Ph.D. candidate, University of Chicago) will present his ongoing work on Empedocles' concept of nature. The lecture is entitled: "Between Demiurgic Love and Random Growth: Image and Concept in Empedocles". All are welcome to attend. The abstract follows.

There is an old verdict, stemming primarily from Aristotle, that Empedocles, the fifth-century poet-philosopher, was conceptually weak and, correspondingly, too bound to ambiguous poetical and mythological images. According to Aristotle, Empedocles’ concept of physis (“nature”) was inadequate, and his metaphors, such as that the sea is the sweat of the earth, are merely poetical and offer nothing useful concerning physis. That verdict has been partially countered by recent scholarship. Most prominent is a growing consensus, that Empedocles’ similes and metaphors drawn from craftwork, which illustrate the composition and action of certain organs as well as the activity of his goddess Love, in fact reveal a clear and systematic providentialism: his Love would then be the pre-Platonic Demiurge, intelligently designing the cosmos. Other scholars, following the lead of such thinkers as Ernst Cassirer, have argued that what Aristotle failed to appreciate was the fundamental mythical identity asserted by Empedocles’ metaphors that unite plant, animal and human life with the life of the four elements themselves, which Empedocles calls rhizomata (“roots”): Empedocles’ cosmos would then be a proto-Romantic, pantheistic unity of exuberant growth. Neither camp has attempted to clarify the concept of physis in the corpus and its relationship to those images. A further possibility lies somewhere between the two positions and will be taken up in this paper. It is predicated in part on the premise—which will be briefly presented, but not argued for here—that Empedocles’ physis shows a greater conceptual clarity and interest than previously appreciated, involving a “nature” that is constituted by the elements as they “learn” to grow together or apart. Each “nature,” that is, is “learned” by immanent processes, not coordinated by an external intelligence. Correspondingly, when carefully analysed and compared, his images display a combination of poetic license and critical restraint, such that although vegetal metaphors are decisively privileged over those from craftwork, even vegetal metaphors have their limits. Between a demiurgic Love and random growth, Empedocles’ roots learn to grow together into a living unity that ultimately outstrips such familiar figuration.


Nicolò Bettegazzi on the Latin literature of Italian Fascism

Time and place: May 7, 2019 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, 452

At the next Classics seminar, Nicolò Bettegazzi (PhD candidate, University of Groningen) will deliver a talk entitled "Between Political and Religious Leadership: Mussolini and Pius XI in the Latin literature of Italian Fascism (1922–1943)."

The talk analyzes a selection of Latin panegyric poems written in Fascist Italy (1922–1943) and dedicated either to Benito Mussolini, leader of the Italian nation, or to Pope Pius XI, head of the Catholic Church. While the first group of poems exalts the Fascist regime and its leader, the second praises Italy’s Christian tradition and its chief representative, the pope. My aim is to highlight the role of the Latin language and its literary tradition in promoting different models of civil and religious leadership and in defining their mutual coexistence.

The emphasis on the figure of the leader emphasizes an important point of contact between Fascism and Catholicism, namely the fact that both were hierarchical organizations based on principles of authority and obedience. At the same time, the different representations of the two leaders show that Fascist ideology and Catholic faith promoted two forms of cult which were constantly competing with each other.

An important matter of competition was the interpretation and appropriation of ancient Rome, of which the Latin language was an essential component. This talk will therefore draw attention to some of the ways in which these Latin texts, which are a very recent discovery, enable us to shed new light on the cultural debates lurking behind the diplomatic and political encounters between Church and State in Fascist Italy.


Sofia Heim on the Hyperboreans in Pindar

Time and place: Apr. 30, 2019 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, GM 452

At the next Classics Seminar, Sofia Heim (MA candidate, Classics) will present her ongoing MA study on the form and function of exotic thaumata (wonders) in the epinikia of Pindar. The study considers this imagery as a device specific to the genre of epinikion as well as places it in relation to the historical context of particular victory odes. The paper will test the hypothesis that exotic thaumata lend a special kind of freedom to the poet by postulating a geographical domain that, by being removed spatially and temporally, allows the poet a ‘protected’ form of praise. The focus of the discussion will be on the Hyperboreans, the mythical northern ethnos on the fringes of the world, whose presence in the victory odes seems to offer a haven for the (often problematic) praise of members of aristocratic elite. The Hyperboreans are especially notable for their apparent disruptive nature, as their presence in the epinikia seems to prompt alterations in the established mythical narrative. The presentation will include a short analysis and comparison of Pindar’s Pythian 10 and Olympian 3, as well as Bacchylides’ Ode 3.


Prof. Joshua Katz on the last books of the Iliad

Time and place: Apr. 2, 2019 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes 452

Professor Joshua Katz (Princeton University) will be the invited speaker at the next Classics seminar. His topic will be "Dice in Iliad 24: Geometry, Fate, and Sex". The talk is open to the public.

Abstract

In this talk, I suggest a new reading of the beginning of the final book of the Iliad, connecting it to the passage in Book 23 in which Patroclus tells Achilles in a dream how his life was utterly changed as a result of an argument over a game of dice (ἀμφ’ ἀστραγάλοισι χολωθείϛ, 88).  If this interpretation is accepted, what we have in Homer is our earliest—but hitherto unseen—evidence for Greek dicing terminology.  And this in turn leads to at least three potentially interesting topics for discussion: (i) it allows us to consider the use of mathematics, especially geometry, in Archaic literature; (ii) it gives us new insights into ancient conceptions of chance and fate, specifically the intertwined fortunes of Achilles and Patroclus; and (iii) it helps us answer a question to which scholars have devoted thousands of pages since antiquity, namely whether already Homer depicts these two men as lovers.


Professor Nina Braginskaya on the Life of Aesop and the origins of the novel

Time and place: Mar. 19, 2019 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, GM 452

At the next meeting of the Classics seminar Professor Nina Braginskaya (The Russian State University for the Humanities; National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow) will deliver a lecture entitled “The Life of Aesop: the one and only Menippean satire?”

The lecture will focus on the history of the (ab)use of the term Menippean satire in Classical scholarship, up until its appearance in Mikhail Bakhtin’s influential analysis of the modern novel in Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics (1963). While there are good reasons to question the validity of an umbrella term that would include works as diverse as Petronius’s Satyricon, Martianus Capella’s De Nuptiis Philologiae at Mercurii and Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae, it is possible to point to one text that conforms to Bakhtin’s definition of the Menippean satire, althought, ironically, it remained unknown to him: the anonymous Life of Aesop. In her lecture, Professor Braginskaya will clarify what genre characteristics Mikhail Bakhtin was after in his theory of the Menippea.  

Since the Life of Aesop is a work that is little known but very noteworthy, seminar participants are invited to read the Life of Aesop in English transition ahead of the seminar. A pdf with an English translation (as well as a pdf of an excerpt from Bakhtin’s discussion of the Menippea) will be circulated through the Classics seminar mailing list; to receive the readings you can also contact the seminar organizer at b.r.maslov@ifikk.uio.no.


Monika Asztalos delivers her farewell lecture on textual criticism

Time and place: Mar. 12, 2019 3:00 PM–6:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes, 5th floor and 462

On March 12, we will celebrate the contributions of Monika Asztalos (Professor of Latin) to Classical scholarship and to the teaching of Classics at the University of Oslo. Professor Asztalos is retiring from teaching this year.

Please join us for a reception at 15:00 (common area on the fifth floor of Georg Morgenstiernes hus), followed by a farewell lecture, 16:15-18:00 (GM 462).

The lecture is entitled: Textual Criticism: to find or create meaning in a text

All are welcome!

Abstract

Textual criticism is an active search for meaning. Two types of difficulties that present themselves to textual critics will be discussed: (1) In philosophical texts that are in some way groundbreaking, current words are often used in a novel technical sense. To search for meaning in such a text has similarities with cracking a code. The challenge lies in disregarding present expectations on a philosophical text and not yielding to the temptation of changing the text to conform it to one’s own expectations. (2) In Roman epic poetry a story is told with words and meter. Poets sometimes break the rules of meter, hence anomalies that have occasionally been considered flaws and removed from the text by active textual criticism. I will argue that such anomalies are intended and that they serve the purpose of illustrating emotions going through spectators in the poem. I will provide examples from (1) my own forthcoming critical edition of Boethius’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories (c. 510 CE) and (2) Vergil’s Aeneid. All texts will be made available during the lecture in handouts with English translations.


Prof. Jan N. Bremmer on Myth and Ritual in Euripides

The Classics seminar welcomes Professor Jan N. Bremmer (University of Groningen) who will speak on "Myth, Ritual and Salvation in Euripides’ Alcestis" on February 26.

Time and place: Feb. 26, 2019 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes 452

The seminar is open to the public.

Jan N. Bremmer is the author and editor of many books on Greek religion and early Christianity, including Greek Religion (Cambridge,1999; 2001; new edition currently in preparation), The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife (London, 2002), and Maidens, Magic and Martyrs in Early Christianity: Collected Essays I (Tübingen, 2017). His works have been translated into Chinese, Danish, French, German, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish.

Abstract

The myth of Alcestis is one of the more famous myths of ancient Greece It provided the plot for one of the best known of Euripides’ plays, which received its première in 438 BC. Yet most of the interest has been in the narratological, philological and dramaturgical aspects of the play, much less in its mythical material, location in time and religious aspects. It is therefore not so strange to take a fresh look at the play with an eye at precisely those more neglected aspects. I will first pay attention to the mythical material available to Euripides (§ 1), then speculate as to why he opted for this specific subject at this specific moment in time (§ 2), continue by looking at several ritual aspects (§ 3) and conclude with some considerations about the nature of salvation in the Alcestis (§ 4).


Prof. Rudolf Wachter on the new Pompeian wall inscriptions

Time and place: Feb. 12, 2019 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes hus 452

At the next meeting of the Classics seminar Professor Rudolf Wachter (University of Basel/University of Lausanne) will give a lecture entitled: “«Pompejanische Wandinschriften» (Tusculum series, publ. autumn 2019): Glimpses at the latest, and last, results in the production of a new editio minor of Pompeian wall inscriptions”.

The Pompeian wall inscriptions give us a spectacular insight into everyday life of the early Roman empire. But alas, there is no short edition suitable both for academic purposes and a wider public. This gap will be closed shortly by a new «Tusculum» volume with a basic epigraphic and general commentary (and a German translation) for each one of some 1500 inscriptions covering all fields of interest: politics, amphitheatre, theatre, business, household, school, private messages (also rude ones), and – love, love, love, with all its façades. A special emphasis is laid on poetic texts, which partly are of surprising quality (and partly not at all). In this talk a choice of inscriptions will be presented whose understanding has been recently improved.

Professor Rudolf Wachter is the author of Altlateinische Inschriften: Sprachliche und epigraphische Untersuchungen zu den Dokumenten bis etwa 150 v. Chr. (Bern: Peter Lang, 1987) and Non-Attic Greek Vase Inscriptions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

The seminar is open to all.


2018

Christian Hervik Bull (postdoc UiO) Neoplatonism and Hermetism in the Anthology of Stobaeus

Time and place: Dec. 11, 2018 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, GM 452

Abstract

The Hermetic writings were ostensibly written by the Egyptian god Thoth, known as Hermes Trismegistus in Greek. They were composed around the beginning of the Common Era, and were heavily influenced by Greek philosophy, in particular Platonism and Stoicism. Excerpts from these writings are found side by side with Greek philosophers, poets, and statesmen in the extensive anthology gathered by John of Stobi, commonly known as Stobaeus, a Macedonian active in the late fourth or early fifth century. This anthology became popular in Late Antiquity and the Byzantine Empire, and it is our only source of several ancient philosophical and poetical texts.

Although we know next to nothing about Stobaeus the man, an investigation of his use of the Hermetic excerpts and his chapter headings may illuminate the religious and philosophical milieu in which he gathered his anthology. I will argue that the most plausible backdrop of Stobaeus is the Athenian school of Neoplatonism before Proclus became its head, where it seems that the Hermetica played a central role that would later be taken over by the Chaldean Oracles. Stobaeus follows the Neoplatonic philosopher Iamblichus in making Hermes the first link of a philosophia perennis – an imagined tradition of ancient and divine Egyptian wisdom, ostensibly drawn upon by both Pythagoras and Plato. Contemporary Christian intellectuals such as Cyril of Alexandria and Augustine shared this view, but made Hermes the inheritor of Moses. Stobaeus thus makes use of Hermes in a competitive discourse about who was the first philosopher, the Egyptian Hermes or the Hebrew Moses.


Sofia Heim: Periphery, limits and the peregrine: exotic θαύματα in Greek poetry (MA project)

Time and place: Nov. 27, 2018 3:00 PM–4:30 PM, GM452

In the process of discovering and inventing the Greek world and shared Greek identity, the Ancient Greeks needed to define ‘their own’ against a contrast of ‘the other’. Early figures such as Homer, Hesiod, and Anaximander placed the known world, both the Greek and the peripheral, within the bounds of the river Okeanos, using the primeval river as a boundary (a πείρατα γαίης) to separate their space from the infinite and indefinite. This notion of limits, both real and imagined, demands that there is an ‘other’, the peregrine, which exists just beyond the reach of the Greeks. This creates both a spatial and qualitative remoteness, which allows a very imaginative understanding of what the periphery might contain. In my MA-project, I will attempt to explore the use of the peripheral and peregrine imagery, i.e. the exotic wonders, in poetry, where the poet crosses the boundaries to offer his audience a glimpse of the unattainable.


Lawrence Venuti (Temple University): Traduttore traditore: The Instrumentalism of Conventional Wisdom

Time and place: Nov. 20, 2018 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Auditorium 2, Georg Sverdrups hus (The university library)

Abstract

Since antiquity, regardless of time and place, language and culture, the discourse on translation has been mired in clichés. The cliché may be a dichotomy indicating opposed translation strategies. Perhaps the most famous example is European, “word-for-word” vs. “sense-for-sense,” which dates back to Cicero’s De optimo genere oratorum (46 BCE) but is decisively formulated in Jerome’s Epistula LVII (395CE). Similar dichotomies occur in Asian cultures as well, such as “unhewn” vs. “refined,” which is reported to have appeared in Zhi Qian’s preface to his Chinese version of the Buddhist sutra, Dharmapada (third century CE).

The cliché may also develop into a fully-fledged proverb about translation, a pithy statement that is believed to encapsulate an accepted truth and therefore to be worthy of repeated application, whether in elite or in popular cultures. Here belong catchphrases like “traduttore traditore” (1539) and Robert Frost’s “poetry is what gets lost in translation” (1959). Even Jacques Derrida’s paradox--“Rein n’est intraduisible en un sens, mais en un autre sens tout est intraduisible” (1996)--has now been used so many times as to have become a theoretical chestnut. These discursive phenomena indicate not only that translation has long been the site of rote thinking, but also that it has been grounded on an instrumental model in which it is understood as the reproduction or transfer of an invariant contained in or caused by the source text, an invariant form, meaning, and effect.

My lecture initiates a rigorous interrogation of proverbial expressions where instrumentalism continues to limit translation commentary. I will start with an examination of the proverb as a genre that is metaphorical and then return a particular translation proverb--“traduttore traditore”--to various contexts where it has been used, both originary and subsequent. The first published use of this proverb seems to have been a sixteenth-century Italian satire, whereafter it was developed in French by sixteenth-century authors, notably the poet Joachim du Bellay. Modern uses examined in the lecture include: a 1929 letter to the editor of the London Times about international business transactions; John Frederick Nims’s 1952 review of Roy Campbell’s translation of San Juan de la Cruz’s poetry for Poetry magazine; Roman Jakobson’s 1959 essay, “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation”; and Arthur Sze’s introduction to his 2001 collection, Silk Dragon: Translations from the Chinese.

The discussion explores how instrumentalism preempts an understanding of translation as an interpretive act that inevitably varies source-text form, meaning, and effect even when the translator maintains a semantic correspondence and a stylistic approximation. At the same time, instrumentalism restricts the definition of the translator’s linguistic competence and leads to notions of untranslatability. Yet if translation is indeed an interpretation, no text is untranslatable since every text can be interpreted. My aim is to defamiliarize notions that have come to be all too familiar as truths of translation, to show how they actually limit thinking about what translation is and does, and to indicate other, more productive directions that thinking can take.

Lawrence Venuti is a professor at Temple University USA. Here are some of his most importants books within this field:

  • "Rethinking Translation: Discourse, Subjectivity, Ideology" (1992) (anthology of essays, editor)
  • "The Translator's Invisibility: A History of Translation" (1995; 2nd ed. 2008; rpt. with a new introduction in 2017)
  • "The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference" (1998) (read a review here).
  • "Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, ed. Mona Baker" (1998) (contributor)
  • "The Translation Studies Reade"r (2000; 2nd ed. 2004; 3rd ed. 2012) (a survey of translation theory from antiquity to the present; editor)
  • "Translation Changes Everything: Theory and Practice" (2013)
  • "Teaching Translation: Programs, Courses, Pedagogies" (2017) (anthology of essays, editor)

Mathilde Skoie (UiO): Catiline: the reception of a conspirator

 Time and place: Oct. 23, 2018 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, 452 Georg Morgenstiernes hus

Abstract

The story of Catiline and his conspiracy has been a popular tale throughout history. As the primary sources to the affaire, Ciceros Catilinarian speeches and Sallusts Bellum Catilinae have been on the school curriculum from Antiquity till today, we find Catiline and his conspiracy used in everything from declamatory exercises, jesuit drama to You-tube reenactments. His name has even been used as a paradigm for nouns in the first declension. Furthermore, major figures like Ben Jonson, Voltaire, Ibsen and Salieri have found inspiration in his story.

We mostly find Catiline cast in line with the negative presentations of Cicero and Sallust. For instance, when briefly alluded to by poets Catiline is mostly used as short hand for villain. But there are also more subversive voices, and ever so often there have been attempts to rehabilitate Catiline. Though perhaps not as many as one might expect. One of these more subversive voices is the Norwegian playwrite Henrik Ibsen in his very first drama, Catilina (1850).

During my research leave in the spring I have tried to establish a context for the exploration of more particular instances of the reception of Catiline. That is, I have tried to find the pertinent questions and trends in the reception of this figure. In the seminar I will give the audience an update on my thoughts so far. Through this exploration I would also like to focus on some more general questions concerning work on the reception of historical figures.

For a sense of where this is coming from, see the short reports in the series Catilinaria on Mathildes Antikkblogg.

Mathilde Skoie is professor at the University of Oslo. Her research interests are mainly in Augustan poetry and the reception of Antiquity broadly conceived.


Courtney Ann Ward (DNIR): Cleopatra's Pearl and the adornment of Roman statues

Time: Sep. 25, 2018 3:15 PM–5:00 PM

The use and display of personal adornment was integral in the creation of personal identities of men and women in the Roman world. We know that men and women from a variety of social and economic classes wore jewelry and items of adornment are mentioned in sumptuary laws and eulogies; they are found on archaeological sites throughout the Empire; they are often associated with human remains in burial contexts and alongside fugitives on the Bay of Naples; and they are often included in both literary and painted depictions of important individuals. One area where such adornment is lacking, however, is ancient sculpture, where objects of adornment are rarely included. Using both archaeological and literary evidence, this talk will examine the evidence for the adornment of both public and private statues in the Roman world.

Courthey Ann Ward is a classical archaeologist and is currently affiliated with the Norwegian institute in Rome.


Simon Barker (The Norwegian Institute in Rome): Marble in the Vesuvian Cities and Villas

Time and place: Sep. 11, 2018 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Møterom 452 Georg Morgenstiernes hus

Abstract

Roman houses provided an environment for elite individuals to showcase power and prestige through their grand scale, imported materials and unobstructed views.  From the Late Republican period onwards, lithic decoration developed as a powerful visual means of reflecting the social status of a house owner due to the house’s role in the social, political and business activities of its owner.  Pompeii, Herculaneum and the villas preserved in the eruption of AD 79 testify to the fashion for and use of marble in domestic décor. These sites contain both elite and more modest houses with numerous well-preserved pavements from the first century BC to the first century AD that showcase marble from all over the Mediterranean and Egypt’s Eastern Desert.  At the time of the eruption in AD 79 private houses in the Vesuvian cities had more marble on display than ever, from elaborate wall-to-wall marble pavements and wall revetment in the wealthy townhouse-villas on the seawall of Herculaneum to the more modest displays of the majority of houses in the region. The Marble and the Vesuvian Cities Project, directed by Simon J. Barker, and begun in 2015, aims to conduct a comprehensive study of marble-use in the 105 houses at Pompeii and 17 at Herculaneum that feature rooms with polychrome marble decoration. The talk focuses on two aspect of this on-going research - the spatial distribution of marble varieties within insert pavements and the overall evolution of the trade for polychrome marbles on the Bay of Naples.


Genevieve Lively (Bristol), Playing for time: Narrative and/as Nostalgia in Tibullus

Time and place: Sep. 4, 2018 3:00 PM–5:00 PM, Møterom 452 Georg Morgenstiernes hus

In recent years, the conventional view of Roman elegy’s “anti-narrative” status has been brought into question and its complex narrative strategies subjected to new scrutiny. Certainly, in contrast to the genre of epic, elegy seems particularly antithetical to narrativity: where readers of epic narratives might look for consistency of viewpoint or voice, for unity of time, place or action, for plot and progress, for time passing and movement toward a final telos, readers of elegy find instead inconsistency and disunity, time stopped and plot development arrested. But this does not tell us the “whole” story about elegy’s narrativity or its narrative potential. Readers of Propertius, Tibullus, Sulpicia and Ovid continue to see stories where there are supposed to be none, tracing narrative arcs within and across individual episodes and poems, identifying characters and their particularized roles, recognizing unreliable narrators and implied narratees, and negotiating the conflicts and resolutions acted out between poets and their puellae within the elegiac storyworld. In this paper, I will be exploring some of the ways in which that elegiac storyworld is configured, taking as my case study the nostalgic narratives of old Albius Tibullus to demonstrate that nostalgia is one of the key devices upon which Tibullan poetry draws in realising its elegiac narrative potential.

Genevieve Lively is a senior lecturer in the Department of Classics at the University of Bristol (UK). She has particuløar research interests in ancient (especially Augustan) narratives and in narrative theories (both ancient and modern). She has recently completed a monograph for OUP's Classics in Theory series on Narratology and have published two books on Ovid: A Reader’s Guide to Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Ovid's Love Songs. She also co-edited Elegy and Narratology: Fragments of Story. She has also worked on the classical tradition, chaos theory, and cyborgs.


Timo Korkiakangas (Oslo): Analyzing Scribal Language Competence with the Help of Network Visualization: Tuscan Documents of the 8th and 9th Century

Time and place: May 15, 2018 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Møterom 452, Georg Morgenstiernes hus

Timo Korkiakangas will present the current stage of his post-doc project "Scribes and Late Latin Charters: a treebank-based study of the language competence of scribes" with special emphasis on if and how network tools can be utilized to visualize linguistic variables in a network of early medieval scribes, documents, and locations.

Timo is postdoctoral research fellow at IFIKK.


Giuliano Sidro (Bologna/Oslo): Latin Loan Words in Greek: The Evidence of the Papyri

Time and place: May 8, 2018 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Møterom 452, Georg Morgenstiernes hus

Giuliano Sidro is MA candidate at the University of Bologna and ERASMUS exchange student at IFIKK.


Silvio Bär (Oslo): Heracles in Greek Epic: Studies on the Narrativity and Poeticity of a Hero

Time and place: Apr. 19, 2018 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Lite seminarrom 144 (!), Georg Morgenstiernes hus

In this talk, I will present an ongoing book project which is close to completion: a monograph on the use of Heracles in Greek epic poetry from Homer to Nonnus. By applying the method of narratological character analysis, I attempt to demonstrate that Heracles serves specific narrative and/or metapoetic purposes in the surviving Greek epics. I argue that the Heracles figure is particularly apt to serve this end because of its decidedly multifaceted and in large parts contradictory character, and that Heracles’ inherent character inconsistency can be seen as a paradigm of what I call “die Widerspruchsfähigkeit des Mythos” (“mythology’s ability to contradict itself”).

Silvio Friedrich Bär is professor of Classics (Greek literature) at IFIKK.


Bettina Reitz-Joosse (Groningen): Battle Palimpsests and the Memory of War in Roman Literature

Time and place: Mar. 20, 2018 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Møterom 452, Georg Morgenstiernes hus

This talk deals with the phenomenon of ‘battle palimpsests’ in the ancient Roman world: several battles which were fought, or were said to have been fought, in the same place. I consider a number of case studies (Zela, the Allia, Rhandeia), which allow us to understand better the dynamic nature of memory formation around battlefields, the role which texts play in such processes, and the commemorative power of landscapes as ‘shadow memorials’ of war.

Bettina Reitz-Joosse is assistant professor of Latin language and literature at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands).


Helen Roche (Cambridge): Classicising Chronopolitics: Appropriating Antiquity in Mussolini's "Third Rome" and Hitler's “Third Reich”

Time and place: Mar. 13, 2018 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Møterom 452, Georg Morgenstiernes hus

This paper will consider why Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany were particularly drawn to distant, classicising models - romanità in the case of Mussolini's "Third Rome", and ancient Greece (particularly Sparta) in the case of Hitler's Third Reich. By placing these two fascist regimes alongside each other and considering their seduction by antique myths in tandem, we can better appreciate the historic rootedness of this particular form of “chronopolitics” in a complex nexus of political and social causes, many of which lie far deeper than the traumatic events of the Great War and its aftermath.

Helen Roche is an affiliated lecturer in History at the University of Cambridge.


Alek Keersmaekers (Leuven): Variation and Change in the Documentary Papyri: A Corpus-Linguistic Approach

Time and place: Feb. 6, 2018 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Møterom 452, Georg Morgenstiernes hus

Because of its relative size​, sociolinguistic diversity and diachronic range, the documentary papyrus corpus is ideal for large-scale corpus-linguistic investigations into variation and change in ancient Greek. Firstly, I will describe a first attempt to annotate the full papyrus corpus automatically for linguistic information, in cooperation with the Trismegistos project. Secondly, I will show how the dataset can be used to study linguistic change in the period of the papyri, with a focus on the use of aspect in the Greek complementation system.
 
Alek Keersmaekers is PhD student in Linguistics of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) at KU Leuven (Belgium).


Boris Maslov (Oslo): The Structure of Iambic Trimeter: A Corpus-Based Approach to Ancient Greek Rhythm

Time and place: Jan. 16, 2018 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Møterom 452, Georg Morgenstiernes hus

Since the 1970s, a distinct development of the statistical method of research into verse, known in comparative metrics as the “Russian method”, came to rely on the use of models of verse generated on the basis of contemporary prose corpora. I will discuss an ongoing project on Ancient Greek prosody that involves wide-ranging comparison of rhythmic patterns in different kinds of prose, choral lyric, and tragic iambic trimeter.

Boris Maslov is associate professor of Classics at IFIKK.


2017

Guiliano Sidro: Latin loan words in Greek: the evidence of the papyri

Open seminar with master candidate Guiliano Sidro. All students, staff members and other guests are welcome.

Time and place: Dec. 5, 2017 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, GM 113

Guiliano Sidro, master candidate at the University of Bologna and ERASMUS exchange student at the University of Oslo, presents the project description for his master thesis.

Students at all levels are encouraged to participate.


Halfdan Martin Baadsvik: Vitruvius’ history of architecture and ancient ideas of the origins of civilization

Open seminar with PhD Candidate Halfdan Martin Baadsvik. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome

Time and place: Oct. 31, 2017 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, GM113

The only comprehensive treatise on architecture to come down to us from antiquity, Vitruvius’ De architectura libri decem (‘Ten Books on Architecture’), published c. 25 B.C., contains several scattered accounts of architectural history, unique fragments of ancient notions of the origins, aesthetics and semantics of the art of building, gnomonics (i.e. the construction of sundials) and mechanics. By careful examination of these passages I have discovered that, although part of a single carefully structured work of literature, they are occasionally at odds with one another. This is not to say that the information presented in them does not agree on the surface, but rather that they appear to betray an inconsistency in the author’s perception of the driving forces behind architectural innovation, technological progress and civilization at large. The purpose of this project is to explore how these parts of De architectura diverge, and how their differences relate to the rest of the work and to Greek and Roman ideas of the origins of civilization in general.

For this seminar I shall give a brief exposition of the objective of my PhD project as well as some findings thus far and thoughts on which results may in the end be expected. I shall explain my reasoning in claiming that Vitruvian architectural history still eludes the conclusions made within said field in that Vitruvius relates ambiguously to two of the various ‘schools’ of anthropological thought in antiquity. My main points will be that De architectura is, in its entirety, yet to be properly studied in this context, a blindspot thus far having covered Vitruvius’ tendency to explain technological and artistic innovation heurematistically (i.e. emphasizing singular inventions) and not merely as an unnoticeably gradual evolution as has often been claimed or assumed.


Carlos Hernández: The Idea of Time in Herodotus' Histories: Between χρόνος and αἰτία

Open seminar with PhD Candidate Carlos Hernández. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome

Time and place: Oct. 24, 2017 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, GM452

Abstract

Hermann Fränkel’s lexical method led him to the conclusion that the practically complete absence of time terms in Homer implied the absence of a clear idea of time. Conversely, Egbert Bakker demonstrated, in his 2002 article “Khronos, Kleos and Ideology from Homer to Herodotus”, that such formal dearth does not entail the absence of a fully-fledged idea of time. Thus, in the Homeric poem, the experience of time is embodied by κλέος in the narration. Along similar lines, I am exploring the concept of time underlying Herodotus’ composition under the premise that the temporality of the Histories is ultimately embodied by αἰτία. In my research, I posit that Herodotus’ work bears witness to the transition between the predominantly qualitative temporality of the Homeric universe (κλέος) to a largely quantitative one budding in the Histories (χρόνος).

Additionally, I examine the inflow of the Near East quantitative-oriented worldview into the Greek qualitative-oriented one as regards their respective perceptions of time. In this backdrop of mixed quantitative and quantitative notions, the apportionment of αἰτία becomes the driving temporal force in the Histories. Narratologically, this materialises in the counselling scenes, where Herodotus’ inquiry into the cause of events opens up a shift of focus from fate to responsibility. By doing so, the author compels the listeners to reflect upon their own decision-making processes in the present.


Narratology and historiography – PhD workshop

One of the fields in which narratological analysis is still considered problematic is that of ancient and Byzantine historiography.

Time and place: Oct. 13, 2017 9:00 AM–3:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes hus, room 113
In spite of the ‘narratological turn’ provoked by the work of Hayden White and others, the adherance to historiographical texts as representing the ‘truth’ still prevails among many scholars. At the same time, collaboration between narratologists and linguists has increased over the last few years, resulting in not only interdiciplinary perspectives but also more refined methodological tools.

On October 13 we will gather in Oslo to consider these question with a point of departure in some current MA and Phd projects. Participants are kindly asked to prepare by reading the chapter on historiography in Irene de Jong’s Narratology and the Classics (2014) and by submitting in advance a brief presentation (5-10 pages) of their ongoing projects, specifying theoretical and methodological issues they would like to discuss. These presentations will be circulated among the participants at least a week before the event. The seminar will be moderated by Ingela Nilsson with the participation of Irene de Jong, Uffe Holmsgaard Eriksen, Markéta Kulhánkova and Margaret Mullett.

Detalied programme

9.00 Matthew Kinloch (Oxford)

The title of my thesis and for the October workshop will be “Rethinking Thirteenth-century Byzantine Historiography.” I will try to get some feedback on the overall arc of the project and the intersection of its four main elements in relation to historiographical problems: narrative structures, the formalisation and construction of events, the subordination of action to characterisation, and the plural/palimpsestic quality of historiography.

9.30 Oskar Andersson (Uppsala)

This presentation will discuss suspense as a literary phenomenon and the problems which arise from investigating suspense in Greek and Roman literature. Furthermore it will show how narratology can be used as a theoretical framework and present some examples of suspense analysis deriving from my M.A. project on suspense in representations of agon.

10.00 Fredrik Sixtensson (Uppsala)

I work on the relationship between κράτος and ἀρχή as terms for political power. Part of my wider theoretical framework is derived from functional and cognitive theories of linguistics. I am interested in the intersection between such linguistic theories and narrative theory, and how I may complement my work with the latter.

10.30 Discussion and Coffee
12.00 Aske Damtoft Poulsen (Lund)

My project consists of a close reading of the accounts (narratives?) of northern barbarians in Tacitus’ Annales. My main aim is to explore the functions of these accounts, that is, how they are connected to the overall structure of the books in which they appear as well as of the Annales as a whole. With the term “northern barbarians” I intend the peoples who live to the north of or in the northern part of the Roman Empire. They can be either independent, semi-independent, or annexed into a province of the Roman Empire, as long as they are described as maintaining a separate identity. The term thus comprises primarily Germani, Britons, Gauls, and Thracians.

12.30 Milan Vukašinović (Paris / Belgrade)

The idea behind my project is to shed light on the ambiguously defined concept of ideology in the post-1204 Byzantine world and uncover a more balanced and comprehensive heterarchical power structure inside as well as between Nicaea, Epiros and Serbia, by looking at the way the authors shaped the narrative about the world they were acting in.

13.00 Discussion, followed by joint lunch

This workshop is open for all, but please note that the lunch is only for speakers and discussants.


An Epic Afternoon: 12 October 2017

Time and place: Oct. 12, 2017 10:15 AM–6:30 PM, P.A. Munchs hus, seminarrom 10

The epic is a form that seems easy to define by its metrical form and heroic content, based on the classical works by Homer and Vergil and persistant throughout the Graeco-Roman tradition. A closer look reveals that the hexameter form could be filled with various contents, just as heroic tales could be told in both prose and other kinds of verse. Ancient epics were throughout the centuries used for not only aesthetic but also educational purposes, and they still offer occasions for adaptations and rewritings such as Margaret Atwood’s playful Penelopiad (2005) or Alice Oswald’s more solemn Memorial (2011). This ‘epic afternoon’ is intended to bring scholars engaging with these different aspects of the epic together and explore potentials for interdisciplinary collaboration.

As a point of departure for the joint discussion, participants are kindly asked to read chapters 1-2 and 7 in The Nature of Narrative (1966) – the foundational book by Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg, provided with a new chapter by James Phelan in the 2006 edition. As a preparation for the opening lecture by Irene de Jong, they should also read the chapter on focalization in her Narratology and the Classics (2014).

The day will open with a morning lecture by Irene de Jong entitled ‘Aeneas relives the fall of Troy: Virgil’s handling of (temporal) focalisation in Aeneid 2’. After discussion and lunch, we will move on to short presentations by seven other scholars: Christine Amadou (Oslo), Uffe Holmsgard Eriksen (Uppsala), Mats Malm (Göteborg), Vibeke Roggen (Oslo), Mathilde Skoie (Oslo) and Gjert Vestrheim (Bergen). This session will be introduced and moderated by Ingela Nilsson (Uppsala/Oslo). By tracing the epic from antiquity into modern days, we hope to engage in discussions of the flexible and inclusive character of epics.

Students and colleagues who are interested in the epic tradition or in diachronical perspectives of narrative are most welcome to join us!

Programme

  • 10.15 Irene de Jong (Amsterdam), ‘Aeneas relives the fall of Troy: Virgil’s handling of (temporal) focalisation in Aeneid 2’
  • 12.00 Lunch for speakers
  • 13.00 Ingela Nilsson (Uppsala/Oslo), Introduction
  • 13.15 Mathilde Skoie (Oslo), ‘Story and genre: from epic to pastoral and back’
  • 13.45 Uffe Holmsgard Eriksen (Uppsala), ‘Joseph and the Amazing Purple Coloured Imperial Robe – epic hymnography by Romanos the Melodist’
  • 14.15 Mats Malm (Göteborg), ‘The Alexander Epic in Medieval Scandinavian Adaptation’
  • 14.45 Discussion
  • 15.15 Coffee
  • 16.00 Vibeke Roggen (Oslo), ‘Towards a literary analysis of Petrarch’s Africa’
  • 16.30 Gjert Vestrheim (Bergen), ‘Classical German Epic - Goethe’s Hermann and Dorothea and Hölderlin’s Archipelagus’
  • 17.00 Christine Amadou (Oslo), ‘Why Homer?’
  • 17.30 Concluding discussion
  • 20.00 Dinner for speakers

On “Being Moved”

In Search of Mixed Affect in Ancient Aesthetics. A seminar with Eric Cullhed from Uppsala University.

Time and place: Oct. 10, 2017 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes hus, Seminar room 113

The elusive feeling state

Over the last few years, scholars in psychology, philosophy, linguistics and literary studies have set out on racing expeditions towards what appears to be a largely uncharted region of human experience: the elusive feeling state that speakers of English usually refer to as ”being moved”. More or less equivalent terms can be found in languages all over the world today and in most cases their uses seem to overlap;

  • “bewegt sein” (German),
  • “être ému” (French),
  • “vara rörd” (Swedish),
  • “commuoversi” (Italian),
  • “estar conmovido” (Spanish),
  • “byt' rastrogannym” (Russian) and
  • “kandoh” (Japanese) are but a few examples.

Every-day emotion?

In every-day life we are “moved” by a number of different things or events, which range from happy to sad, solitary to relational, and involve either real-life or fictional and artistic experiences. This multiplicity could be taken as proof that “being moved” is nothing more than a generic label we use to account for a state of emotional arousal which is itself generic (otherwise we would use more specific emotion terms) or, at best, confused and thus difficult to define in any other way.

Co-occurrence and phenomenological blending with other emotions might also induce us to conflate “being moved” with the experience of, say, sadness, admiration, or joy. Hence, although the concept has an illustrious history within aesthetics, playing a prominent role in discussions about the enjoyment of negative emotions in the experience of art in the Eighteenth century, scholarship has, in the majority of cases, made sweeping use of it in order to denote emotional elicitation of any sort.

A state in its own right

Today, however, a growing number of researchers assert the need to treat “being moved” as a discrete affective state in its own right, determined by specific eliciting conditions, phenomenology, physiological outcomes, action tendencies and functions.

The rhetoric of "moving" the audience

At the seminar I will discuss problems of definition and points of agreement and disagreement in this recent literature before turning to an exploratory investigation of how emotion historiography might approach this affective state in antiquity.

Although these recent studies as well as the longer tradition in modern aesthetics often cite the ancient rhetorical imperative that a good orator must not only teach and please but also “move” (Lat. movēre) the audience, this reference amounts to little more than an argumentum ad antiquitatem, in view of the fact that the ancient theorists used the term generically to refer to all kinds of emotion elicitation.

In fact, although the emotional lexica of ancient Greece and Rome feature a large set of motion metaphors, it is far from easy to find distinctive lexicalizations of the emotion state we are interested in here.

Yet, consider scenes like that in the sixth book of the Iliad, where the Trojan warrior Hector leaves the battlefield and plays with his baby son Astyanax before his wife, Andromache “took him back again to her fragrant bosom | smiling in her tears”. Is this not the “objective correlative” of being moved – “a set of objects”, in T.S. Eliot’s words, “a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion”?

Questions

It would seem that studies of the lexical field of spatial emotion terms must be combined with a more dynamic “script” methodology; but is it possible to formulate objective criteria for narrative representations of this affective state, or objects eliciting this state, in ancient literary sources? How can affective narratology move beyond impressionistic introspection? And what can historical investigation of elusive mixed emotions of this sort contribute to ongoing debates on human emotions between biological fixity and social construction.

This presentation is part of an ongoing collaboration with Pia Campeggiani at The Department of Philosophy and Communication Studies, Università di Bologna.


Project Presentation: The Right Moment. Representations of Kairós in Medieval and Early Modern Art

By Han Lamers (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and KU Leuven). Open for all.

Time and place: Sep. 12, 2017 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, room 452, Georg Morgenstiernes building

Han Lamers is joining the classics section at IFIKK in January 2018 and will in this research seminar present a new international and interdisciplinary project on the concept of kairós that he has just obtained funding for and therefore will be taking with him when he starts in Oslo. A complex concept that even Cicero found difficult to translate, the Greek term kairós expresses a notion of 'grasping the right moment', which travelled through art, literature, and philosophy. Combining perspectives from classical reception studies and iconology, this research initiative is about the reception of kairós in the visual medium from antiquity to the Renaissance.

  • How was this ancient Greek notion visualized in ancient, medieval, and Renaissance art?
  • And how did text and image work together to transform the idea of 'grasping the right moment' in very diverse contexts?

The research team will gather and analyze the largely disconnected 'textual' and 'visual' research traditions about the reception of kairós in order to explore, more systematically than has been attempted before, the Nachleben of this motif in the visual medium. To achieve this, it will build an exhaustive digital database (or Bilderatlas) of visual representations of kairós. Giving special attention to specific transformation processes (e.g., Latinization and re-gendering), it will define and explore key moments in the transformation history of kairós such as the revival of artistic interest in the concept in the 11th and 12th century and its adaptation to the humanist context of the 15th and 16th century.


Christopher A. Faraone (University of Chicago): Women and Children First: The Earliest Evidence for Ancient Greek Body Amulets

The Classics Research Seminar, The Oslo Seminar in Papyrology, and The Seminar in Late Antique and Early Medieval Culture invite to open seminar with C.A.Faraone. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome

Time and place: June 6, 2017 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, GM 452

Abstract

This lecture will explore vase-paintings and votive statues that show how Greek women and male children wore knotted cords and strings of amulets to protect their bodies. The absence of similar amulets on naked adult males points to a restriction of use to females and immature males. This talk will also show how the wearing of childhood amulets by boys (especially on Cyprus and in Athens) seems intertwined with assertions of citizenship and other forms of status.

About Christopher A. Faraone

Christopher A. Faraone is Frank and Gertrude Springer Professor in the Humanities and the College department, University of Chicago, and an outstanding expert on ancient magic and Greek literature. Select books and edited volumes: Vanishing Acts: Deletio Morbi as Speech Act and Visual Design on Ancient Greek Amulets (London, 2013); (with Dirk Obbink), The Getty Hexameters: Poetry, Magic and Mystery in Ancient Greek Selinous (Oxford, 2013); The Stanzaic Architecture of Archaic Greek Elegy (Oxford, 2008); Ancient Greek Love Magic (Harvard, 1999); Talismans and Trojan Horses: Guardian Statues in Ancient Greek Myth and Ritual (Oxford, 1992); (with Dirk Obbink) Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion (Oxford, 1991).


Aristotelian practical wisdom in perspective

Open seminar by Pål Gilbert, lecturer in Greek, IFIKK. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome.

Time and place: Apr. 25, 2017 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, GM 452

The human disposition which Aristotle calls phronēsis is essential to his picture of living well, being good and acting properly. Commonly translated as 'practical wisdom' and succinctly describable as the ability to deliberate well on practical matters, phronēsis might appear an easily understandable and even – as so often with Aristotle – a common-sense notion. Still, difficulties of both text and substance abound once the surface is removed. In particular the relationship between phronēsis as an intellectual disposition and the so-called 'virtue of character' is intimate to the point of obscurity, phronēsis defining the mean which is virtue of character, while virtue of character provides the end with a view to which phronēsis supplies excellent deliberation. The distinct and proper function of phronēsis, its status both as an 'intellectual' and a broadly considered 'ethical' trait, remain controversial issues.

In my talk my ambition is not to put the matter to rest, but I will attempt to approach the Aristotelian account by first considering some of the different ways the term is used in earlier literature, not only the noun, but more importantly the verb phronein. I will conclude by giving a reading of what I consider the main features of phronēsis in Aristotle's account in the Nicomachean Ethics. πολλῷ τὸ φρονεῖν εὐδαιμονίας πρῶτον ὑπάρχει.


The Pastoral from Theocritus to Virgil: Constructing and Deconstructing a Literary Genre

Guest lecture by Giampiero Scafoglio. Open for all.

Time and place: Apr. 4, 2017 3:15 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes building, room 452

The question is whether, and to what extent, the pastoral emerges as a well-defined literary form in Theocritus’ Idylls and in Virgil’s Bucolics; whether, and to what extent, the pastoral has the features of content and style that scholars and readers traditionally attribute to it. The search for an answer will result in a round of iconoclasm about pastoral as a literary genre.

Giampiero Scafoglio is Professeur de Langue et littérature latines, Département de Lettres classiques, Université de Nice.


Ambra Serangeli: Galen’s Design Argument vs. Epicurean Evolution in De Usu Partium

Open seminar with Ambra Serangeli, PhD student in Ancient philosophy . All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome

Time and place: Mar. 14, 2017 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, GM452

Abstract

The controversy between teleologists and anti-teleologists about the generation of the species, namely between those philosophers who attribute the origin of animals and human beings to an intelligent cause and those who consider all the creatures as the product of accident, is a long story of disagreement and harsh criticism that starts with the Presocratics and leads to Darwin and contemporary theories of evolution. The main representatives for these two opposite views in antiquity are Plato and Aristotle, on the teleologistic side, and the atomists together with all the medical systems influenced by their materialism, such as Asclepiades of Bithynia’s one, on the other side.

Galen places himself within the “design argument tradition” of Hippocrates, Plato and Aristotle, and plays a significant role in giving his contribution to the rebuttal of anti-teleologism within biology. He is a fervent and convinced teleologist, as clearly emerges from his De Usu Partium, where he describes the human body as the outcome of divine planning, which is always provident and just. In other words, according to Galen, the anatomical structure of the human body reflects the best possible decision taken by the demiurge, which has molded it. Therefore, in De Usu Partium all the organs of the human body are described as perfectly matched to their functions and every part of the body is conceived to be useful.

Given these premises, it should not come as a surprise that Galen dedicates a great number of pages to the rebuttal of Epicurean zoogony and its idea of evolution applied to anatomy, namely the idea that particles and void are the only principles of the generation of species, which obtain their anatomical structures only through adaptation to their environment. Such a view, described in particular by Lucretius, implies the rejection of the final cause and therefore the overturn of a teleological doctrine of causation similar to the one that later will be held by Galen. Indeed, in De Rerum Natura Lucretius conceives of the process of the generation of species as subjected to no plan or efficient cause, as it is shown in book V by the idea of spontaneous generation of monstrous creatures (portenta) and the concept of adaptation by extinction.


Jens Mangerud: Contracts from the grapheion of Tebtunis

Open seminar with PhD Candidate Jens Mangerud. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome

Time and place: Mar. 7, 2017 3:15 PM, GM452

Abstract

I will present parts of a chapter from my dissertation concerning the grapheion​ (record-office) of the village Tebtunis in the Faiyum Oasis. A large number of contracts drawn up and registered at this grapheion have been preserved including some in the Oslo collection. The office was run in the first half of the first century CE by a certain Apion followed by his son Kronion, and an archive consisting of their documents has already been studied and described in detail (P. Mich. vol. II and V).

I will instead look at contracts from the late first century up to the 160s, when the institution of the village grapheion seems to disappear. In this period different names occur as heads of the Tebtunis grapheion, and I will attempt to group and organise the material according to date (when preserved) as well as the different hands of the scribes (when I have access to images), stylistic and orthographic peculiarities, and prosopographical information about the persons involved in the transactions. Apart from editing a new document from the Oslo collection (inv. 1464), I will propose new readings and alternative datings for a number of already published documents.


Interpolations in Ovid's Metamorphoses?

Seminar by Monika Asztalos. Open for all.

Time and place: Feb. 21, 2017 3:15 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes building, 452
The authenticity of a number of lines in Ovid’s Metamorphoses has been questioned by Nicolaas Heinsius in his textual comments on the Metamorphoses (1652), Richard Tarrant in a number of articles as well as in his critical edition of the Metamorphoses (OCT, 2004), and Gian Biagio Conte in ‘Ope ingenii. Experiences of Textual Criticism’ (2013).

Monika Asztalos will defend the genuineness of some lines that have been considered interpolations by all three scholars and argue that they, far from being flawed and dispensable, add a twist to the episodes in which they occur.


Thomas Kjeller Johansen, "What God couldn’t do: Plato on the limitations of divine craftsmanship"

Open seminar with professor Thomas Kjeller Johansen. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome

Time and place: Feb. 7, 2017 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, GM 452

Thomas Kjeller Johansen is Professor of Philosophy at UiO. He was previously Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Oxford, and has written books on Plato and Aristotle.

Abstract: Plato in the Timaeus says that when God made the cosmos he created the heavenly bodies, but he couldn't make man or the other mortal animals. This task he had to leave to other, ‘lesser’ gods. Why that is so has puzzled readers since antiquity. In this paper I distinguish Plato's problem from the famous Theodicy problem, and argue that the problem is best understood in terms of God's role as a craftsman.


2016

Ingela Nilsson: To Write a New History of Ancient Literature in Swedish

Open seminar with Ingela Nilsson. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome

Time and place: Nov. 29, 2016 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes Hus, meeting room n. 452

Professor Ingela Nilsson (Uppsala/Oslo)

Abstract

How can we write a new history of ancient literature for a general audience, taking into account not only the given material and the tradition, but also recent research and modern perspectives on literature? At this seminar I will present some material from my chapter on ancient literature in the forthcoming Swedish history of literature. The discussion will focus on questions of selection, order and modes of representation, but also on suitable material for figures and illustration.


Christina Maria Hoenig: Scientia et Eloquentia. Philosophy and Rhetoric in Apuleius

Open seminar with Christina Maria Hoenig. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome

Time and place: Nov. 22, 2016 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes Hus, meeting room n. 452

Assistant Professor Christina Maria Hoenig (Pittsburgh)

Abstract

One of the key figures of Platonism during the Second Sophistic, Apuleius, presents to his readers a comprehensive and coherent interpretation of Platonic doctrine. The author constructs his role as a consummate Platonic interpreter by combining philosophical expertise with rhetorical skill, thereby assuming the role of a priest and an expert mediator between Plato’s divine authority and the initiates of philosophical wisdom. By discussing the Apuleian synthesis of several doctrinal themes original to Plato, I will show that Apuleius’ eloquentia is not merely a cosmetic shell, but the very tool that allows him to convey his Platonic knowledge to his audience.


Vibeke Roggen & Hilde Sejersted: Den lille latinskolen (work in progress)

Open seminar with Vibeke Roggen and Hilde Sejersted. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome

Time and place: Nov. 15, 2016 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes Hus, meeting room n. 452

Vibeke Roggen & Hilde Sejersted (Oslo)


Per Erik Solberg: The Long-Distance Binding of "se" in Latin and the Semantics of Indirect Discourse

Open seminar with Per Erik Solberg. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome

Time and place: Oct. 25, 2016 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes Hus, meeting room n. 452

Per Erik Solberg (PhD candidate - IFIKK)

Abstract

In this talk, I present my research on the semantics of the Latin reflexive pronoun "se" used as an indirect reflexive. In indirect discourse, "se" is very frequently used to refer to the author, as in the following example: "Marcus se Tulliam amare dixit". The antecedent of the reflexive is often a subject, but other options are possible too. I argue that the antecedent of the reflexive can be inferred from the speech/thought event, and I show how such an account can make sense of otherwise quite puzzling pronoun-antecedent relationships.


Kristoffel Demoen: Flavius Philostratus’ Apollonius and Heroes: Intertextuality, Characterization and Fictionalization

Open seminar with Kristoffel Demoen. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome

Time and place: Oct. 11, 2016 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes Hus, meeting room n. 452

Professor Kristoffel Demoen (Gent)

Abstract

In the early third century AD, Flavius Philostratus wrote an intriguing œuvre that has received more attention in the last decades than ever before. In his Lifes of the Sophists, he coined the term ‘Second Sophistic’, which has become (perhaps unduly) the name of a movement or even a whole period (ca 50-250 AD) that was obsessed with the Greek literary and cultural past. Several of Philostratus’ own works are cases in point. We will discuss his Apollonius (aka Vita Apollonii) and Heroes (aka Heroikos). The first is a unusually long biography (or is it?) of the first-century AD ‘holy man’ (or is he?) Apollonius of Tyana, the second a Platonic (?) dialogue about the true story of the Trojan War. Despite their differences in many respects, both works share an explicit focus on the ‘correct’ image of their main characters, a complex narrative situation and a marked attention to the authentication of the story that is being told. Paradoxically, these features may be interpreted as enhancing the fictional status of both texts – as does the abundant presence of intertextual devices.


Duncan Kennedy: Metalepsis and Metaphysics

Open seminar with Duncan Kennedy. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome.

Time and place: Sep. 27, 2016 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes Hus, meeting room n. 452

Duncan Kennedy is Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of Bristol

Abstract

Metalepsis is the term Genette uses in his narratological studies to refer to narratives in which two 'worlds' or 'realities' or 'levels' which are notionally separate impinge in some way on one another (as,e.g. in Sterne's Tristram Shandy or Fowles's French Lieutenant's Woman). This paper will explore how metaleptic ploys can throw light upon the ways in which metaphysics works to draw distinctions between seeming and being, illusion and truth, this world and the next. It will begin by examining the role of dreaming in Christopher Nolan's 2010 movie Inception, in Descartes' Meditations and in Plato, before briefly glancing at Virgil's Aeneid, Augustine's Confessions and Lucretius. But if thinking about metalepsis can help us engage with this 'classical' tradition of metaphysics, recent developments in metaphysics can show how metalepsis need not be regarded, as Genette does, as a strictly literary (and slightly scandalous) device, but a regular part of our everyday experience.


Antonios Pontoropoulos: Philostratus’ Erotic Letters: Erotic Language and Literary Representations of Gender

Open seminar with Antonios Pontoropoulos. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome.

Time and place: Sep. 20, 2016 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes Hus, meeting room n. 452

Antonios Pontoropoulos (PhD candidate in Greek literature - Uppsala University)

Abstract

A corpus of 37 miscellaneous prose letters labeled as Erotic Letters has come down to us under Philostratus. There are two main groups addressed to different recipients and arranged according to subject: out of the 37 extant letters, only 35 can be categorized as erotic. The addressees of the letters remain unnamed, differentiated only by grammatical gender: 23 letters are addressed to unnamed boys (1, 3-5, 7-11, 13-19, 24-27, 46, 56-58, 64) and thirty to unnamed women (2, 6, 12, 20-23, 28-39, 47, 50, 54-55, 59-63). There are many letters on the same subject to a boy or to a woman, although the pairs are not directly juxtaposed. This paper explores how the Philostratean letter corpus exploits an eroticized discourse in terms of the represented relationship between the epistolary ‘I’ of the letters and their recipient. To be more precise, it is focused on the rose as a metonymy, which conveys certain connotations: it is either referred to the idealized object to the epistolary ‘I’’s desire, or to his anxiety about his intensity and length of a homoerotic relationship. Finally, it also invites various metapoetic connotations about the epistolary ‘I’’s own prose.


Carlos Hernández: Herodotus’ Histories - tales of time to remember - A case in point: Croesus

Open seminar with Carlos Hernández Garcés. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome.

Time and place: Sep. 13, 2016 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes Hus, meeting room n. 452

Carlos Hernández (PhD, IFIKK)

Abstract

This paper explores the phenomenon of world-making and collective identity in 5th century BCE Greece through the interrelation between temporality, history, memory, forgetfulness, and truth in Herodotus’ Histories. Through semantic considerations and based on the theoretical guidelines drawn from memory studies and narratology, this paper uses Croesus’ logos as the vehicle of the argument (1.29-58 and 1.70-92).


Jan Bremmer: Ghosts, Resurrections and Empty Tombs in the Gospels, the Greek Novel and the Second Sophistic

Professor Jan Bremmer (Groningen)

Time and place: Aug. 30, 2016 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes Hus, meeting room n. 452

Abstract

From the Gospels, Luke comes closest to the world of the Second Sophistic, the period of Greek culture and literature from about the rule of Nero to AD 230. This period also was the cultural Umwelt of the Greek novel, which contains many interesting stories about ghosts, resurrections and empty tombs. My interest in the lecture is especially in the interplay between the Gospels and pagan literature, and I will argue that the latter, in particular the novel of Chariton, influenced the Gospels, but that, in turn, the Gospels influenced pagan literature, in particular Lucian and Philostratus.


Christian H. Bull: Hermes Trismegistus in the Anthology of John of Stobi

Open seminar with Christian H. Bull. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome.

Time and place: May 10, 2016 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes building, room 452

Dr. Christian H. Bull

FRIPRO-project, Marie Curie Mobility Grant, 2016–2019.

Abstract

Hermes Trismegistus in the Anthology of John of Stobi.

The Greek treatises authored by the Egyptian divine sage, Hermes Trismegistus, during the first centuries CE are today largely known through the collection known as the Corpus Hermeticum. The 40 excerpts preserved in the philosophical Anthology of John of Stobi, commonly called Stobaeus, have in comparison suffered relative neglect. Of these, 29 are otherwise unknown, whereas 11 derive from treatises also preserved in the Corpus Hermeticum or the compendious Perfect Discourse, only extant in a Latin translation known as the Asclepius.

The present project aims to redress this situation, by exploring topics such as the sources and methods of Stobeus; the status of Hermes Trismegistus and the circulation of Hermetica in the fifth century; the centrality of the Stobaei Hermetica in the Hermetic tradition; and the reception of the Stobaei Hermetica by later Byzantine authors. A secondary goal of the project is to assemble the so-called “technical” Hermetica, and evaluate their place in the Hermetic tradition. These texts deal with the so-called “occult sciences,” such as astrology, alchemy, iatromathematica and magic, and contributed substantially to the fame of Hermes Trismegistus. Today they have slid into obscurity, partly due to their poor state of publication. A comprehensive treatment of these texts has not been undertaken since the 1940s.

The project will be undertaken first two years at the Classics Department of Princeton University, and then a final year at the Classics Department of the University of Oslo.


Timo Korkiakangas: Treebanking and the Language Competence of Late Latin Scribes

Open seminar with Timo Korkiakangas. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome.

Time and place: Apr. 26, 2016 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes building, room 452

Dr. Timo Korkiakangas (IFIKK)

Abstract

Thousands of early medieval Latin private documents from the 8th to 9th centuries are stored in Italian ecclesiastical and municipal archives. These charters display a special, non-standard variant of Latin, and are supposed to reflect developments of the spoken language.

In my paper, I shall present my incipient post-doc project in which I am going to examine with selected computer-assisted methods the change and variation of spoken Latin through these documentary texts. As a central concept, I shall utilize the scribes' language competence, which will be quantified as a bundle of linguistic and extra-linguistic variables. The research will be conducted on the Late Latin Charter Treebank (LLCT), which I am currently enlarging with new charter material. The treebank contains morphological, syntactic, and semantic annotation layers and is in the Prague format.

The ambition of the project is to combine linguistic variables with network visualization. The linguistic variables will be 1) spelling correctness, 2) syntactic complexity, and 3) the number of innovative morphosyntactic features. The network model will link these variables to the historical metadata, such as date, place, and scribe's name. With this model, I hope to track mechanisms of linguistic change in the spoken Latin of the time.


Robert Clinton Simms: Temporal Ordering and Statius’ Thebaid

Open seminar with Robert Clinton Simms. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome

Time and place: Apr. 19, 2016 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes building, room 452

Dr. Robert Clinton Simms (IFIKK)

Abstract

When Statius set out to produce his epic on the ‘Oedipodionidae fratres’, he knew that he was competing for a place within an established literary tradition. At Thebaid 12.813 he boasts that his epic has novelty, ‘nouam’, and at Achilleid 1.12-13 he triumphantly declares that he is now counted among the ‘prisca nomina’ that sang of Thebes. Yet how might a poet like Statius negotiate the hazards of tedium to which recycled stories are so prone? A narrative, generally understood, has four constituent features:
Actors, Location, Events, and Time. Canonicity makes the first three fairly uncompromising; however Time, or more specifically how events are ordered, offers the greatest flexibility in producing the states of suspense and anticipation necessary for a compelling narrative.


Ágnes T. Mihálykó: Singing in Greek, praying in Coptic: languages in the liturgy of late antique Egypt

Open seminar with Ágnes T. Mihálykó. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome

Time and place: Apr. 12, 2016 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes building, room 452

Ágnes T. Mihálykó (PhD, IFIKK)

Abstract

Christian liturgy in Egypt started in Greek. However, parts were soon translated into the language of the native population, Coptic. The process began with the Biblical readings, then the prayers followed suit, while the hymns and the acclamations of the people were sung in Greek as late as the 10th century (and for certain parts of the service this practice continues to date). But what do we know and what can we know about the process? When and where did the liturgy of the Coptic Church start to be performed in Coptic? Where did Greek survive the longest? What were the motivations behind the shift of linguistic medium? And how does the use of the languages in the liturgy fit into the larger picture of the interplay of these languages in Egypt in general? My presentation will analyse a corpus of more than three hundred liturgical papyri, which can provide insight into the transition from Greek to Coptic in the liturgy.


Joanne Vera Stolk: Can scribes make mistakes?

Open seminar with Joanne Vera Stolk. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome.

Time and place: Apr. 5, 2016 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes building, room 452

Dr. Joanne Vera Stolk (IFIKK)

Abstract

Scribes sometimes seem to make mistakes. However, these potential ‘errors’ may also reflect variation or changes in the language. Editors of texts can deal with scribal variation in various ways. In this presentation I will show some of the most common scribal errors in Greek papyri and the different approaches of ancient scribes and modern editors to correct them.


A Digital Classics research agenda: both Digital Humanities and Classical Studies

Open seminar with Dr. Gabriel Bodard. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome. NB. Different than the usual time!

Time and place: Mar. 14, 2016 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes building, room 207

Dr. Gabriel Bodard (Reader in Digital Classics, Institute of Classical Studies, University of London).

As a classicist and philologist, research to me means learning something new about the ancient world, improving our understanding of a text or cultural-historical event, or making available new, improved, or more accessible sources, while acknowledging previous scholarship and preserving a transparent methodology, bibliography, and critical apparatus.

As a digital humanist, research means contributing to the understanding, sources or communication of one or more humanities discipline, while building, modifying or applying in an innovative way some computational tool, approach or method, preferably in a standard, open, reusable and well-documented way.

I hope it is not labouring the point to say that I believe the two definitions above have much in common, are both true to the humanistic tradition, and indeed are both Science (in the European sense that does not recognise Snow's two cultures). Digital Classics as a subdiscipline, then, applies a methodological agenda and set of tools, much as a critical or historical theory does. In this paper I shall discuss some recent epigraphical and prosopographical research that exemplifies this dual, but not conflicting, agenda.


Progymnasmata in a poem by Horace (Ode 1.18)

Open seminar with Tor Ivar Østmoe. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome.

Time and place: Feb. 2, 2016 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes building, room 452

Tor Ivar Østmoe (postdoc, IFIKK) Progymnasmata in a poem by Horace (Ode 1.18)

Abstract

Although evidence suggests that preparatory exercises in rhetoric, progymnasmata, were in use in Roman schools from the early 1st century BC, few attempts have, at least more recently, been made to draw connections between these rhetorical exercises and Augustan poetry.

In the talk I aim to demonstrate that progymnasmata can help interpret features in a poem by Horace (Ode 1.18) including speaking persona, topicality and structure. A second aim is to discuss what this type of analysis can contribute more generally. How does it combine with other approaches to Augustan poetry including intertextual ones, and how can it add to our perception of Roman imitation and translation of Greek literature?


Conceptualising time and shaping memory in Herodotus' Histories

Open seminar with Carlos Hernández Garcés. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome.

Time and place: Jan. 26, 2016 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes building, room 452

Carlos Hernández Garcés (PhD, IFIKK)

Abstract

Herodotus' Histories admittedly stand at a crossroads concerning various aspects of the Greek literary tradition and of Greek thought by and large. Among the least explored are the two that flank the very notion of history, namely, the cultural concept of time that underlies the genesis of the historical genre and the interaction between history and memory that constitutes the basis of collective identity. Therefore, the intent of my PhD research will be to probe the scope and interrelation of the three elements articulating the axis time-history-memory in Herodotus' Histories. In my presentation, I will lay out an update of my ongoing research.


2015

Kalydon: An Ancient Greek City in Aitolia

Open seminar with Søren Handberg. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome.

Time and place: Dec. 1, 2015 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Room 205, Georg Morgenstiernes house

Søren Handberg, Associate Professor of Archaeology at UiO, will give a paper on the archaeological excavations in the ancient Greek city Kalydon in Aitolia.

Welcome!

Abstract

During the past fifteen years, archaeologist have carried out large scale excavations in the ancient Greek city of Kalydon in Aitolia, which is famously known from the Homeric myth about the Kalydonian boar hunt. The ongoing archaeological excavations are providing new evidence for the development of the city, which has implications for the historical development of the region in the period from the 8th century BCE to the early 1st century CE.


Anti-Christian Polemics and Pagan Onto-Theology: Observations on Julian’s Against the Galileans

Open seminar with Christoph Riedweg. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome.

Time and place: Nov. 17, 2015 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, seminarrom 1036, Niels Henrik Abels hus

Welcome!

Abstract

During his short period of government (361-363 AD), the Emperor Julian, later called “Apostata”, undertook a serious attempt at “repaganising” the Roman orbis terrarum from a philosophical, esp. Neo-Platonic background. In this context, he wrote an acrimonious pamphlet against the Christians, whom he mockingly called “the Galileans”. This pamphlet has been preserved only in fragments.

In my presentation, I will first try to sketch and analyse the main topics and structures of argumentation as far as they can be retrieved from the existing fragments. Secondly, I will attempt to reconstruct Julian’s own Neo-Platonic Onto-Theology, which will turn out to be of a distinctively Iamblichean stamp.


When East meets West, when Ancient meets Modern-Yoko Tawada’s Ovidian Imagination

Open seminar with Fiona Cox. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome. Note: The seminar will this time be held on a Wednesday.

Time and place: Nov. 11, 2015 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, seminarrom 1036, Niels Henrik Abels hus

Fiona Cox, Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter, will give a paper on the reception of Ovid by the contemporary Japanese author Yoko Tawada. The presentation will be in English. Fiona Cox will also be presenting a paper at the conference “Gender, Translation and Transnational Reception” (PDF) which takes place on 12-13 November at UiO.

Welcome!

Abstract

Yoko Tawada’s Opium für Ovid – Ein Kopfkissenbuch von 22 Frauen (2000) adapts the legends of twenty-two women (most of whom feature in Ovid’s Metamorphoses) and transposes them to modern Hamburg. The translation of antiquity to contemporary Germany parallels Tawada’s own trajectory from living in Japan to living in Hamburg, an experience she explores in her series of lectures on metamorphosis entitled Verwandlungen (1998).

Opium für Ovid blends themes from the Heroides and the Metamorphoses with the influence of the eleventh-century Japanese classic, Pillow Book, a record of everyday observances, stories and memories recorded by Sei Shonagon, who was a court attendant to the Empress Sadako. In Tawada’s work Leda, Niobe, Daphne and Iphis become contemporary actresses, hairdressers, photographers and students.

Tawada shows us modern Germany through the eyes of an immigrant, acutely conscious of the perils of not fitting in, and uses Ovid to analyse the clash between cultures and the status of foreigners. She also uses Ovid to probe the new shapes of the fantastic offered by the world of the internet – her probing of the condition of women, for example, is haunted by the new appearances of Narcissus in the world of internet pornography, a facet of the contemporary world that remains of concern to fourth-wave feminists.


The Pompeius Niger Archive

Open seminar with Jens Mangerud. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome.

Time and place: Oct. 20, 2015 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Niels Henrik Abels hus, rom 1036

Jens Mangerud, PhD candidate at IFIKK/UiO, will present his papyrological research project on the Pompeius Niger archive. The presentation will be in English.

Abstract

The Pompeius Niger archive is a small archive of documents concerning legal as well as more private matters of a Roman soldier of Egyptian origin from the first century AD. The documents of the archive are kept in several collections, one of which is the collection of the Oslo University Library.

I will make a short presentation of the known texts from the archive and also suggest some other texts from the Oslo Collection – both published and unpublished – that seem to relate to Pompeius Niger or other people known from the archive.

Welcome!


A Critical Edition of Boethius’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories

Open seminar with Monika Asztalos. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome.

Time and place: Oct. 6, 2015 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, room 452, Georg Morgenstiernes house

Monika Asztalos, professor of Latin at the University of Oslo, will present her research project: a critical edition of Boethius’s commentary on Aristotle’s Categories (written ca. 510 CE) with a translation into English, a commentary, and an Index of terms.The presentation will be in English.

About the project

Boethius uses a number of common Latin words as terms with a very specific function in his philosophical works. It is only by looking at every occurrence of a given term that one can understand how he is using them. To achieve such an understanding is a requirement for appreciating what goes on in the texts. One example will suffice: occurrences of ‘uocare’, ‘nominare’, ‘nuncupare’ in any Latin text can often be translated ‘to call’. But if one does so when translating Boethius, one will receive a text that is pointless or that can be perceived as repetitious ad nauseam.

From the texts I have extracted and formulated the principles behind his use of a number of key terms. In the seminar we will discuss a list of claims about Boethius’ use of such terms followed by a list of quotes from his texts where the terms are used. I will provide further information about the project as such and these examples.

Welcome!


To See, To Describe, To Narrate: Narration and Authorship in Twelfth-Century Byzantium

Open seminar with Ingela Nilsson. All students (esp. all freshers), staff members and other guests are warmly welcome.

Time and place: Sep. 22, 2015 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, room 452, Georg Morgenstiernes house

Ingela Nilsson, professor of Greek at the University of Uppsala, will give a paper in connection with her research project on authorship and literary production in 12th-century Byzantine literature.

About the project

My present project concerns questions of authorship and narration in twelfth-century Byzantium, a period of cultural and literary prosperity manifested especially in the imperial circles of the capital Constantinople. A number of intellectuals worked at and for the court and its wider aristocratic network, often starting their career as teachers and then climbing the ladder towards administrative positions while producing rhetoric and poetry on commission for imperial and wealthy patrons.

While research in the field of Byzantine twelfth-century literature has made some important progress in recent years, there is still no comprehensive study of one author and his entire literary production, an approach that would allow us to better understand the authorial position in relation to education, genre, patron, wider audience and society.

This project is intended to fill that gap, offering a case study of a twelfth-century teacher and writer on command, Constantine Manasses, applying a narratological perspective on the level of both authorial self-referentialty, individual works, and the literary production as a whole.

Welcome!


Presentation of Master Thesis

Pål Asle Djupvik presents his master thesis The implied Author in Heraclitus' Homeric problems

Time and place: Apr. 14, 2015 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, 113 GM


Cleopatra as Antiquity’s Eternal Topmodel

We have the pleasure to announce that Prof. Dr. Ulrich Eigler, University of Zurich, visits the Classical Seminar to give a lecture on “Cleopatra as Antiquity’s Eternal Topmodel”.

The seminar is open to the public. All students, staff members and guests are warmly welcome.

Time and place: Mar. 24, 2015 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, 652 GM

Abstract

Octavian clearly won the war against Cleopatra and Antony, held a splendid triumph over Cleopatra in Rome, and far outlived his enemies for almost 43 years. For centuries he was praised, and Cleopatra put down for moral reasons. But in our time one could say: Cleopatra clearly comes out ahead, posthumously winning over her former foe with an almost global popularity triggered by works of literature, but most effectively by features of popular culture as Elizabeth Taylor’s reenactment of the queen in Cleopatra (1962), or recently by models as Heidi Klum and Giselle Bündchen. In the lecture, a general genealogy will be shown of how Cleopatra on the long run of history triumphed over Octavius/Augustus.

About Ulrich Eigler

Ulrich Eigler is Professor of Latin at the University of Zurich. His broad research interests encompass ancient and humanist Latin literature, the reception of Antiquity in the visual arts and popular culture (esp. film), and ancient slavery and its reception in modern literature. He is a co-editor of the Handwörterbuch der antiken Sklaverei.


2014

Contextualisation, Literarisation and Geopoetic Function in the New Epigram Collection of Poseidippus

We have the pleasure to announce that Prof. Dr. Manuel Baumbach, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, visits the Classical seminar to discuss contextualization and literarisation in the New Epigram Collection of Poseidippus.

The seminar is open to the public. Students of Greek, Latin, Literature and History of Ideas are most welcome.

Time and place: Nov. 18, 2014 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, 452 GM

The publication of 112 epigrams from a Hellenistic papyrus roll in 2001 turned out to be a sensation: the epigrams could be attributed to the famous Hellenistic poet Poseidippus of Pella, and the collection proved to be the earliest example of a well-structured epigram book. In the paper the organization of the epigrams within the collection will be discussed with regard to questions of contextualization and literarisation. A special focus will be given to the technique of constructing and using ‘space’ for political and cultural intention.

About Poseidippus

Poseidippus is of interest for a wider audience, because his epigram book is one of the most sensational findings in Greek literature/poetry of the past years. Furthermore, Poseidippus is also highly interesting because his “new” poems significantly enlarge the genre of epigram (viz. the New Poseidippus encompasses types/sub-genres of epigramm that had previously been completely unknown).

About Manuel Baumbach

One of Manuel Baumbach's numerous fields of research is Hellenistic poetry, in particular the epigrammatist Poseidippus. He is a co-editor of the collected volume Labored in Papyrus Leaves: Perspectives on an Epigram Collection Attributed to Posidippus (P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309), 2004 – thus he was one of the very first scholars to work on the New Poseidippus after the publication of its editio princeps in 2001/02.


Liturgigal Papyri in Use

Agnes Mihalyko gives a talk related to her PhD. 'How Can We Sing the Lord's Song?' Liturgical Papyri in Use.

Time and place: Oct. 28, 2014 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, 452 GM


Thesaurus Linguae Lationae

Johann Ramminger, TLL, Munich: Presentation of the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, followed by a workshop for students and other users of the TLL

Time and place: Oct. 14, 2014 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, 452 GM


Thesaurus Linguae Latinae

We have the pleasure to announce that Johann Ramminger holds a presentation of the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, followed by a workshop for students and other users of the TLL.

Time and place: Oct. 14, 2014 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, 452 GM

Since 1982 I am a lexicographer at the Thesaurus linguae Latinae-Institute at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich delegated by the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Among the words I have written are pecunia, psalmus, and the prepositions pro and propter; now I am finishing ne-quidem, and working on necesse. Besides the TLL I have done research on the semantic development of Renaissance Latin, and have developed an on-line dictionary of Early Modern Latin.

Bibliography and downloads at www.neulatein.de you can follow my research on academia.edu.


Ethics in Heliodorus' Aethiopica

Zacharias Andreadakis, visiting scholar at UiO, will present first chapter of his dissertation, titled "Ethics in Heliodorus' Aethiopica"

Time and place: Oct. 7, 2014 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, 452 GM


Livian landscapes - Roman identity in the Italian countryside

Virginia Clark: Livian landscapes - Roman identity in the Italian countryside

Time and place: Mar. 25, 2014 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, møterom 452

The seminar is open to the public.


2013

Commemorating the Living

Professor Monica Gale, Trinity College, Dublin, visits Classics seminar.

The seminar is held in English and is open to the public

Time and place: Nov. 26, 2013 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, room 452

Professor Gale  will speak about "Commemorating the Living: Epitaphs and Funerary Monuments in Roman Elegy".


Joanne Stolk PhD UiO

PhD fellow Joanne Stolk presents the first part of her research project: Possessors or Affectees: combining the semantics of the dative and genitive case in the papyri

The presentation is given in English and is open to the public.

Time and place: Apr. 23, 2013 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, 452 GM

Joanne Stolk on the presentation in brief

One of the important changes in the language of the papyri is the decline of the dative case. During the first millennium AD the usage of the dative diminishes and confusion arises in the papyri between the dative and the other cases. In this presentation I will present the first part of this research under the title "Possessors or Affectees: combining the semantics of the dative and genitive case in the papyri". In the Greek of the Byzantine papyri the genitive is sometimes found in a position where one would expect a dative case. This paper focuses on the changes in the meaning of the genitive case in the Greek language of the Roman papyri in order to explain this special usage of the genitive in later stages of the language.

Short about Joanne Stolk

PhD fellow Joanne Stolk works on her project called "The Language of the Papyri: Diachronic change in Egyptian Greek (300 B.C. - 800 A.D.)". She is a part of the department's current research project Strengthening research capacity in the papyrus collection of the Oslo University Library (2012-2015) lead by associate professor Anastasia Maravela.


Freedom of Speech and Religion? Pagans and Christians in Constantine's Rome

The lecture is open to the public.

Time and place: Mar. 19, 2013 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, 452 GM

Michele Salzman on the lecture in brief

After the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, the emperor Constantine entered Rome and faced the senate and people even as he revealed his support for his new religion, Christianity. Constantine’s relations to the senate and Rome’s resident senatorial aristocracy in this period and throughout his rule (312-337) lie at the heart of discussions of the conversion of the empire, and have consequently attracted a good deal of scholarly attention, but not consensus. Some scholars have proposed that a strong pagan senate confronting an aggressively Christianizing ruler naturally led to overt political conflict; others have argued that an acquiescent pagan senate responding to a tolerant or intentionally ambiguous emperor meant there was no political conflict.

As I will show, each component of this narrative – conflict, imperial efforts at Christianization, and senatorial power –requires independent consideration. Such an analysis, carried out in this paper, leads me to propose a different model of this relationship. Constantine’s appointments to office, rising senatorial prestige and the administrative reforms of the senate and senatorial order made some in the senate supporters of the new regime while others, though less positive, were unwilling to take an overt, political stand in opposition. Nonetheless, senate and senators found ways to resist religious and political change, as literary and material evidence indicate.

Short about Michele Salzman

Michele Salzman is professor of History at the UC Riverside University of California. Main areas of research include religion in the ancient world, Greek and Roman history as well as latin literature.


2012

Speaking and concealing - Calypso in the eyes of some ancient interpreters

Open guest lecture by Filippomaria Pontani, University of Venice, on Calypso in the Odyssey.  

Time and place: Oct. 26, 2012 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, 452 GM

Filioppomarias sammendrag av foredraget

Love and melancholy, persuasion and temptation, rationality and immortality: the episode of Calypso in Odyssey 5 has been often regarded as paradigmatic by ancient critics as well as by some modern authors.

A fresh look at the Greek scholia to this passage might enable us to detect different approaches to the characters of Hermes, Odysseus and Calypso herself, and to trace possible links with the Latin aftermath of this episode.

A final section will be devoted to the various symbolic and allegorical readings linking Calypso with death, inaction, imagination and metaphysics, from late Hellenistic times down to the Neoplatonic school and Eustathius of Thessalonica, from Jean Dorat to Giovanni Pascoli.

About Filippomaria Pontani

Filippomaria Pontani is Associate Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".

He is editing the scholia to Homer's Odyssey (two volumes published so far, books 1-2 and 3-4, Rome 2007 and 2010 respectively; prolegomena: Sguardi su Ulisse, Rome 2005), and has published extensively on Greek and Latin language, poetry and prose (from Sappho to Demosthenes, from Callimachus to Petronius), as well as on ancient allegory (Heraclitus' Homeric Questions, Pisa 2005), on Byzantine literature and art (Eustathios, Isaac Porphyrogenitus, Maximos Planudes, portraits of Homer), and on Humanist Greek (above all Politian's Liber epigrammatum Graecorum, Rome 2002, and Budé's Homeric studies).

He also translates Modern Greek literature into Italian (e.g. Poeti greci del Novecento, Milan 2010).

 

Published Feb. 25, 2022 12:39 PM - Last modified Jan. 16, 2024 4:36 PM