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The Interplay of Spectacle in the Roman Arena

Call for Papers: An Undergraduate Research Conference hosted by the Texas Tech Classics Program

The Conference will be held virtually on April 17th, 2021.

Featuring respondents Dr. David Larmour (Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Classics at TTU) and Ms. Cait Mongrain (Doctoral candidate at Princeton, TTU MA ‘15, BA ‘12)

The Roman Arena is a space of dynamic interplay, in which multiple sights, sounds and smells, competing points-of-view, and individual and collective positionings, all continually impinge upon, and negotiate with, each other. In this conference, we aim to bring together a diverse group of treatments of such matters as the gladiatorial munus, wild animal venationes, executions and other spectacles, focusing upon the bodies, gazes and movements of the arena’s participants—gladiators, venatores and damnati; emperors and other editores; and the multifarious spectators who flock to watch them. The conference is especially interested in the period 250 BCE-250 CE.

We invite research papers with an original focus, designed for oral presentation with accompanying visual or other sources, in the range of 20-25 minutes, followed by discussion.

Please send a 300-word abstract, along with a short c.v. or biographical statement, to Profs. David Larmour (david.larmour@ttu.edu) and Sydnor Roy (sydnor.roy@ttu.edu) by February 26th. Accepted papers will be notified by March 5th.

Abstracts should:

- Be no more than 300 words

- State the central research question and purpose

- Provide a brief discussion of the research methodology

- State conclusions, either final or anticipated

- Be well organized

- Be reviewed by a faculty mentor before submission

PLEASE NOTE: Faculty Mentor support will be confirmed. Abstracts that do not receive a faculty mentor endorsementwill not be accepted.