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AIA and SCS have been working on detailed plans for our 2022 joint Annual Meeting based on the results of our recent survey. Since 60% of respondents expressed a preference for a hybrid meeting, we are planning for our first ever hybrid conference in January 2022. This means speakers will be able to present in person in San Francisco or remotely in each session, and attendees will be able to attend sessions in the hotel or virtually. This is an ambitious undertaking and some elements of the conference cannot easily have a hybrid format; for example, social events will need to be either in person or virtual. However, we aim to make the meeting as hybrid as is feasible given logistics, costs, and staff capacity. We anticipate a two-tier scale of registration rates, with virtual attendance costing less than in person attendance. There are many details still to be worked out, so please bear with us and we will update you later this Summer and in the Fall.
Members who made submissions to the SCS program committee this spring can expect to receive notification emails about the program committee’s decisions within the next few days.
Today marks half a year since insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol, occupied the Senate chamber, violently assaulted Capitol Police defending the building, and threatened to assassinate the then-Vice President and other elected officials. In recent days, the House of Representatives has approved a plan for a formal investigation — on partisan lines, after Senate Republicans previously blocked the passage of a bipartisan, 9/11-style commission approved by the House in a bipartisan vote.
We mustn’t forget the assault on the peaceful transition of power, on the foundations of American democracy itself. And we shouldn’t forget that the insurrection is tied up with racist receptions of ancient Greece and Rome. Some insurrectionists came in Greek or Roman-themed cosplay, after all, and the right has long had a dangerous fascination with Sparta.
Call for Papers
Fédération internationale des associations d’études classiques (FIEC)
Mexico City
(Virtual Meeting Format)
Hesperides Sponsored Session
"Hesperian Transformations: New Approaches to the Classical Tradition"
Proposal Deadline: July 12, 2021
Joseph Fontenrose’s The Delphic Oracle (1978) fundamentally reshaped how we think about Greek oracular divination today. In this book, he argued that the literary evidence for ambiguous verse oracles emanating from Delphi is incommensurate with the epigraphic record. In the Histories, an early and prominent source of oracular lore, Herodotus often quotes vague or ambiguous prophetic verses of the Delphic priestesses that point toward unexpected and ironic moments of fulfillments: the “great empire” that Croesus toppled was, unfortunately, his own (1.86.1). Most inscriptions, however, report oracular pronouncements simply as clear statements of fact: “… it is better [for the Praxiergidai] to put the peplos on [the goddess]…” (Sokolowski, LSCG 15). Fontenrose reasoned that the inscriptions were the more reliable witnesses and concluded from his comparison that most of the famous stories about oracles in works of ancient historiography like Herodotus’ were ahistorical.
We are pleased to announce Plato 2022, an interdisciplinary workshop that will investigate the contemporary relevance of Plato’s ethical and political thought. The workshop will be held virtually on June 9-10, 2022. We welcome papers on Plato’s ethical and political thinking and encourage submissions that relate to contemporary events.
Do you teach ancient history, Latin, or any aspect of the ancient world within humanities courses at a community college? Join other community college faculty for the inaugural meeting of a new group convened by the Society for Classical Studies. You can sign up here for the virtual meeting on Thursday July 15, 2021 at 4pm EDT / 3pm CDT / 1pm PDT and also use the form to suggest topics of interest for discussion. Registered attendees will receive the zoom link on July 14th, 24 hours prior to the meeting.
The Ancient Worlds, Modern Communities initiative (AnWoMoCo), launched by the SCS in 2019 as the Classics Everywhere initiative, supports projects that seek to engage broader publics — individuals, groups, and communities — in critical discussion of and creative expression related to the ancient Mediterranean, the global reception of Greek and Roman culture, and the history of teaching and scholarship in the field of classical studies. As part of this initiative, the SCS has funded 111 projects, ranging from school programming to reading groups, prison programs, public talks and conferences, digital projects, and collaborations with artists in theater, opera, music, dance, and the visual arts. The initiative welcomes applications from all over the world. To date, it has funded projects in 25 states and 10 countries, including Canada, U.K., Italy, Greece, Belgium, Ghana, Puerto Rico, Argentina, and India.
Revised 6/17/21 with updated submissions guidelines
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). Covid-19 and the global Movement 4 Black Lives have highlighted the extent to which racism is a public health emergency whose reach extends across the Black Atlantic and far beyond. In light of these deeply imbricated developments of 2020, this volume becomes even more timely. A detailed call for papers, along with instructions and deadlines for submission in 2021, 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
On the eve of March 26th, rapper and internet personality Lil Nas X dropped his newest single, “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name),” which caused immense controversy in its wake. At its heart is a young, gay Black man’s anthem about self-expression, resembling a “coming-out song.” Lil Nas X himself implied this in a letter to his younger self, posted alongside the song’s release. The title references the 2017 film Call Me By Your Name (based on the 2007 André Aciman novel) about the summer relationship between a Classics professor’s son and doctoral student.
This allusion to the film is not the only sidelong glance that Lil Nas X gives to the Classics. One of the first establishing shots of the video shows the landscape of “MONTERO” littered with classically-inspired architecture:
The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities The Hebrew University of Jerusalem cordially invite you to a Joint Conference on
Orality and Literacy XIV: Textualization
Sunday-Wednesday June 20-23, 2021
Sunday, June 20, 2021
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
