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A Forum on Thornton Wilder's Alcestiad at Fordham University
The Dean's Office of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, the Fordham Theatre Program, and the Fordham Department of Classics will present A Forum on Thornton Wilder’s Alcestiad on March 6, 2020. This June, Fordham Artist-in-Residence and Artistic Director of Magis Theatre Company, George Drance S.J., will stage Thornton Wilder’s Alcestiad at Four Freedoms Park in New York City. In anticipation of the production, a panel discussion of the script will be held on March 6, 2020 at 6:30pm. The event will be held at the Twelfth Floor Lounge at Fordham Lincoln Center. Panelists will include George Drance, S.J. (Fordham University and Magis Theatre Company), Elizabeth Scharffenberger (Columbia University) and Jerise Fogel (Montclair State University). Actors from Magis Theatre will also present a few scenes from the upcoming production. The event is free and open to the public.
The 2020 SCS Election Slate and narrative report of the 2019-2020 Nominating Committee are now available on our website.
Thank you to our Nominating Committee members and to all those who have agreed to stand in summer 2020.
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As previously announced, Patrice Rankine and Sasha-Mae Eccleston will serve as guest editors of a future issue of TAPA with the theme of race, racism, and Classics (issue 153:1, to appear April 2023). Their detailed call for papers, along with instructions and deadlines for submission, follows.
Race and Racism: Beyond the Spectacular
…the “cultural logic” of lynching enables it to emerge and persist throughout the modern era because its violence “fit” within the broader, national cultural developments. This synchronicity captures why I refer to lynching as “spectacular”: the violence made certain cultural developments and tensions visible for Americans to confront.
Jacqueline Goldsby, A Spectacular Secret: Lynching in American Life and Literature
The program submission system is now open and accepting proposals.
You can visit the main page at https://program.classicalstudies.org/
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Workshop: Socratic eudaimonia and the care for others
An event sponsored by the International Society for Socratic Studies
Verona, April 8-9, 2020
Despite the appearances given by certain texts, the moral psychology of Socrates need not imply selfishness. On the contrary, a close look at passages in Plato and Xenophon (see Plato, Meno 77-78, Protagoras 358, Gorgias 466-468, Euthydemus 278, Lysis 219; Xenophon, Memorabilia 3.9.4-5) suggests that the egoist’s welfare depends upon the welfare of others (i.e. family or friends). Since the welfare of the egoist’s family and friends is part of the egoist’s own eudaimonia, the egoist has a direct and intrinsic motive to promote the welfare of these others.
The new Classics Everywhere initiative, launched by the SCS in 2019, supports projects that seek to engage communities worldwide with the study of Greek and Roman antiquity in new and meaningful ways. As part of this initiative the SCS has been funding a variety of projects ranging from reading groups comparing ancient to modern leadership practices to collaborations with artists in theater, music, and dance. In this post we honor Black History Month and focus on programs that support and encourage the engagement of black communities globally with the study of classical antiquity.
Advocacy, growth, and inclusion are the three new strategic priorities that the SCS is committing to for the immediate future. The following programs, funded by Classics Everywhere, exemplify these priorities by seeking out and fostering the perspective of black students, scholars, and artists in the study of classical antiquity and its legacy: an event celebrating the release of a new book on classical reception, a public panel in Ghana, and the creation of a new curriculum for young African Americans in New Orleans.
“BA Program in the Archaeology, History, and Literature of Ancient Greece”
Languages of Ecology: Ancient and Early Modern Approaches to Nature
Languages of Ecology: Ancient and Early Modern Approaches to Nature focuses on the origins, variety, and transformations of notions of ecology in antiquity and the early modern period.
The colloquium aims to initiate an interdisciplinar debate about epistemic and literary-based image production that led to popular, symbolic, and new scientific notions of ecology. Studies into the foundations and traditions of environmental thinking and ancient experiences of nature, including eco-critical attitudes, enable a better understanding of the different languages of ecology that emerged and co-existed during the early modern period and beyond.
AGAMBEN AND HIS INTERLOCUTORS
April 2-3, 2020, Marshall University
Call for papers
The inaugural Agamben and His Interlocutors Conference will take place April 2-3, 2020, on the Huntington, WV campus of Marshall University. Giorgio Agamben is a contemporary political philosopher whose scholarship has had a lasting impact on a wide variety of fields, from political theory to classics and anthropology. The conference is being organized by three Marshall University faculty: Professor Robin Conley Riner (Anthropology), Professor Christina Franzen (Classics), and Professor Jeffrey Powell (Philosophy). As is suggested by the conference title and its organizers, it will be an inherently interdisciplinary affair, drawing from the various interlocutors with whom Agamben has engaged.
Abstract submissions should be no longer than 250 words and are due via email to conleyr@marshall.edu by March 16, 2020. Presenters will have an hour each for presentation and discussion. Abstracts will be accepted from undergraduate and graduate students and faculty.
Keynote speakers
- Dr. Kevin Attell, Cornell University, English
- Dr. Thomas Biggs, University of Georgia, Classics
Contact
Robin Riner
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Marshall University
One John Marshall Drive
Huntington, WV 25701
Apply to be Nominated for a Whiting Foundation Public Engagement Fellowship or Seed Grant
Once again, the Whiting Foundation has invited the Society for Classical Studies to nominate four scholars for the Whiting Foundation Public Engagement Fellowships and Seed grants. SCS will be nominating two scholars selected last academic year, who have elected to use their nominations in this year’s application cycle. We are also issuing an open call for applications from which the Committee on Public Information and Media Relations will select two additional nominees.
Below you can read more about the fellowships and seed grants, and find guidelines for applying to SCS to be a nominee.
About the Whiting Public Engagement Programs:
These programs aim to celebrate and empower early-career humanities faculty who undertake ambitious, usually deeply collaborative projects to infuse the depth, historical richness, and nuance of the humanities into public life. The two programs are:
