Programme of Institute Events
Alice Oswald, Memorial: An Excavation of the Iliad
24 April 2013, 5.30 p.m.
Arts Complex, LT3
The award-winning poet Alice Oswald will be at the University to read from her 2011 poem, subtitled 'An Excavation of the Iliad', and to discuss her work more broadly. Organised by Dr. Peter Dent of the Department of Historical Studies, with the support of the Bristol Instutute of Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition, and of the Bristol Poetry Institute.
Greek Myths on the Map, The Sixth Bristol Myth Conference,
31st July – 2nd August, 2013.
Goldney Hall, University of Bristol
Organisers: Dr. Jessica Priestley and Dr. Greta Hawes.
For further information please see http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/birtha/events/greekmyths/
Blackwell-Bristol Lectures 2013
30th April, 1st, 7th and 8th May 2013
Professor Mark Vessey, University of British Columbia
Writing before Literature: Later Latin Scriptures and the Memory of Rome
For further information please see Blackwell Bristol Lectures 2013
The Reception of Herodotus in Antiquity and Beyond
A Publication Workshop
18th - 19th April 2013
Organisers: Dr Jessica Priestley (Leventis Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition, University of Bristol); and Dr Vasiliki Zali (Teaching Fellow in Classics, Department of Greek and Latin, University College London)
Further information is available Herodotus Workshop Details
Victorian Pompeii: triumph or disappointment?
Organised by Centre for Public Engagement
Thursday 14 March 2013
Professor Mary Beard, University of Cambridge, is Visiting Deas Fellow in History and Society and a Vice-President of the Bristol Institute of Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition. One of Britain's best-known Classicists, she has written numerous books and was recently awarded an OBE.
Today Pompeii is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world, but has it always been such a hit? This lecture will look at the experience of visiting Pompeii in the nineteenth century and at the complaints of some visitors at what they saw - and ask what has changed. Further information is available
Free, advance booking required. Contact Amanda Edmondson on +44 (0)117 - 3318313 or amanda.edmondson@bristol.ac.uk
Constitutionalism Ancient, Modern, and American
Saturday 8th December, The Tress Lecture Theatre, Social Sciences Complex, 13 Priory Road, Bristol BS8 1TU.
Donors’ Event 5 p.m.
Presented by
Professor Paul Rahe (Hillsdale College, Michigan)
Paul Rahe studied Classics at Oxford and received his doctorate in ancient history from Yale; he taught at Cornell University, Franklin and Marshall College and the University of Tulsa before moving to Hillsdale College in Michigan in 2007, where he is Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in Western Heritage and Professor of History. His scholarly career has focused on the origins and development of self-government in the west, from classical antiquity to the present; his books include Republics Ancient and Modern: Classical Republicanism and the American Revolution (1992), as well as works on Machiavelli and Montesquieu, and he is currently working on a book on the Spartan Way of War. As well as articles in both classical and political theory journals, he contributes regularly to blogs on current affairs.
His lecture will consider one of the most important legacies of the ancient world to modern political thought, the idea of the Constitution (and of particular kinds of constitution) as the foundation of society and justice. He will trace this idea from its classical origins to its rediscovery and reinvention in the early modern period and on to debates about the significance of the Constitution in the United States today.
Admission Free but tickets (limited numbers) MUST be booked from Marilyn Knights, email: artf-igrct@bristol.ac.uk
To be followed by a wine reception
Legacy of Greek Political Thought Research Workshop
University of Bristol, 7th-8th December 2012
A two-day meeting of members of the international research network on the Legacy of Greek Political Thought, with a range of papers from academics and postgraduate students from classics, history of thought and political theory.
Professor Neville Morley (n.d.g.morley@bris.ac.uk)
Female Fury and the Masculine Spirit of Vengeance: Revenge and Gender from Classical to Early Modern Literature.
5 - 6 September 2012
Clifton Hill House, University of Bristol
Keynote Speakers:
Professor Alison Findlay,
Professor Edith Hall
Academic organisers
Dr Lesel Dawson (English) and Dr Vanda Zajko (Classics & Ancient History)
Pater the Classicist
30 June - 1 July 2012
An international and interdisciplinary workshop on Walter Pater, one of England's greatest cultural critics, bringing together classicists and experts in Victorian studies.
Thucydides our Contemporary?
28-29 June 2012
A major international conference on the reception and influence of Thucydides in the modern world.
Keynote Speakers
Arlene Saxonhouse (Michigan): Deciding to go to war: Thucydides on who’s responsible
Clifford Orwin (Toronto) The political role of the human body in Thucydides
There is also a public lecture on Friday 29th by Hunter R.Rawlings, President of the American Universities Association, on 'A Possession for All Time? How and why Thucydides still matters'. Recital Room, Victoria Rooms, Queens Road, Bristol. 6.00 p.m.
Caractacus: An Interdisciplinary Symposium
Sunday 18th March 2012, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Victoria Rooms, University of Bristol
Sir Edward Elgar’s 1898 cantata Caractacus explores patriotism and imperialism through historical re-imagining of early British resistance to the Roman empire.
Two Bristol University Institutes, the Centre for the History of Music in Britain, the Empire and the Commonwealth, and the Institute for Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition, have collaborated to produce this symposium on Caractacus from antiquity to the nineteenth century, and beyond.
Keynote speaker:
Professor Tim Barringer (Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art, Yale University): “An English Hero: Paradoxes of Nation and Empire in Elgar’s Caractacus”
Choral Performance
Saturday 17 March, 7.30pm
Bristol University Choral Society and Symphony Orchestra
Further information and booking arrangements for Caractacus Symposium (pdf)
Greece and Rome in Silent Cinema: A screening of archival films with live music accompaniment
Saturday 3rd December, The Wickham Theatre, Cantocks Close, Bristol, BS8 1UP
Donors’ Event 5 p.m.
Presented by
Pantelis Michelakis (Senior Lecturer in Classics, University of Bristol) and Maria Wyke (Professor of Latin, University College London)
This screening provides a small sample of rarely seen archival films set in ancient Greece and Rome from the collections of the British Film Institute National Archive. The screening will be introduced by Pantelis Michelakis and Maria Wyke. The films will be accompanied on the piano by Stephen Horne, long considered as one of the leading silent film accompanists.
Admission Free but tickets (limited numbers) must be booked from Marilyn Knights, email: artf-igrct@bristol.ac.uk
To be followed by a wine reception.
Bristol Half Marathon - Sunday 11th September
The Institute of Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition in the Faculty of Arts is sponsoring a team to run the Bristol Half Marathon on Sunday 11 September to mark the 2,500 year anniversary of the marathon. The team is raising money for Classics for All, a charity working to give more state school students in the UK the opportunity to study Classics. (Classics for All will be running a project in Bristol from January 2012).
If you would like to support the team you can make a donation at Just Giving
Public Lecture by Professor Paul Cartledge, Leventis Professor of Greek Culture, University of Cambridge
Monday 9th May, 1-2pm
'Pan(demonium): Why Marathon still matters 2,500 Years on'
A lecture to mark 2,500 years since the Battle of Marathon.
2,500 years ago in 490 BC, a momentous clash of civilizations took place at Marathon in Greece. An invading Persian army was routed by a grossly outnumbered force of Greeks, and a different outcome that day 2,500 years ago could have had far-reaching cultural consequences.
Read about the associated poster competition for schools here >>
P.M. Warren Visiting Professors in Aegean History
The quality of applicants for the position this year was such that we have agreed with the Institute of Aegean Prehistory, who generously fund the scheme, to appoint two lecturers. Cynthia W. Shelmerdine, Robert M. Armstrong Centennial Professor of Classics, emerita, University of Texas at Austin will be coming to Bristol from 21st January to 5th March, to work on a monograph for CUP on Mycenaean Society. Professor Krzysztof Nowicki, currently Head of Department of Classical Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, will be coming in January to work on a monograph on Crete and the south-east Aegean in the Final Neolithic and Beginning of the Bronze Age. Organised by Nicoletta Momigliano and Peter Warren.
New Approaches to Pompeii and Herculaneum
Saturday 12th February, The Orangery, Goldney Hall. Donors’ Event 2011. Organised by Bob Fowler and Shelley Hales. Further information
Please note this event is now fully booked
Pompeii and Herculaneum, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, are among the most famous archaeological sites in the world. These two talks by researchers at the University of Bristol, aimed at the general public, will discuss some of the problems involved in understanding, developing and preserving the World Heritage Sites for the future, and showcase some creative approaches to the study of these fascinating cities.
| 5.00 pm | Welcome and Introduction |
| 5.05 pm | 'Herculaneum at the Crossroads: The Past and Future of a World Heritage Site', Professor Robert Fowler |
| 5.30 pm | 'Reconstructing Ancient Pompeii: A Virtual Experience', Dr Shelley Hales |
| 6.00 pm | Questions |
To be followed by a wine reception.
Blackwell-Bristol Lectures: publication launch
Tuesday 15th February, Bristol. To celebrate the publication of the first two volumes in the series, the Classics research seminar will be devoted to Danielle Allen’s Why Plato Wrote, with the author introducing some of the key themes in the work, and an opportunity for general discussion. The event will be followed by a wine reception. Organised by Ellen O’Gorman and Neville Morley.
Blackwell-Bristol Lectures 2011: Colin Burrow (Oxford) on 'Imitation'
10th May: From Mimesis to Imitatio
11th May: Metaphors of Imitation
17th May: Milton and Imitation
18th May: Beyond Imitation?
Faculty of Arts, Bristol; all lectures start at 5.15 pm. Organised by Charles Martindale and Duncan Kennedy. Further information at www.bris.ac.uk/arts/births/centres/institute/blackwell.html
Translation, Reception and Appropriation
A series of workshops under the Reception research theme, in collaboration with the AHRC project on Charlemagne in England, the Thucydides project and the MA in Translation. Dates to be confirmed. Organised by Marianne Ailes, Adrienne Mason and Neville Morley.
Thucydides
The Thucydides project will also be organising a series of research workshops: on ‘Philology and Education’ (Bristol, Saturday 5th March), on political theory (US, September) and on historiography (Bristol, autumn). Dates to be confirmed. Organised by Neville Morley and Christine Lee. Please check the project website at www.bris.ac.uk/classics/thucydides for further information.