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“Constructing Identity in the Ancient World”

Madison, WI: October 26-27, 2018

8th Annual Graduate Colloquium

Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies

Keynote presentation by

Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer

Helen A. Regenstein Distinguished Service Professor of Classics and the Program in Gender Studies

In assuming the name “Nobody,” Odysseus forsakes his reputation in order to survive. Portraits from Fayum provide a rare glimpse of individuals in their final years of life. With his dying breath – Qualis artifex pereo! – Rome’s emperor makes a striking claim to a place on the stage. Individuals and communities in the ancient world constantly strove to express their sense of self through a multitude of media and through many means of expression. This colloquium will investigate the various ways in which figures in the ancient world negotiated and revealed their identity, as characters in a literary text and the creators of those fictive worlds, as historical greats and those barely discernable through the passage of time. In this way, we seek to build a fuller understanding of the people who lived in antiquity. The Classics Graduate Forum at the University of Wisconsin-Madison invites papers from current graduate students addressing how those in the ancient world sought to answer the question, “Who am I?” We welcome papers from any discipline or approach, such as philology, history, philosophy, religion, art history, political science, and other fields.

Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

· Defining self and other through text

· Displays of identity through art, architecture, clothing, or mannerisms

· Relationships between peoples in the ancient world

· The assumption of voices and identities through personae

· Reception and transmission of art and literature

· False identities and disguises, on-stage and off

· Marginalized voices

· Assimilation and resistance

Graduate students wishing to present a paper at the fall colloquium should submit a titled abstract of no more than 300 words along with relevant bibliography to uwclassics.colloquium@gmail.com by Friday,

June 1, 2018. Please include the following on a separate page with the abstract: name, the title of the paper, email address, institution, city, state, and country. Paper presentations should be 15 minutes in length.

Direct any questions to Amy Hendricks (amy.hendricks@wisc.edu).