ἀγών agōn: struggle, contest, trial, conflict, challenge, strife

with a pre-conference seminar on Empedocles’ Poem on nature and an Empedocles-themed post-conference tour

The cultural and intellectual legacy of Western Greece—the coastal areas of Southern Italy and Sicily settled by Hellenes in the 8^th and 7^th centuries BCE—is sometimes overlooked in academia.  Yet evidence suggests that poets, playwrights, philosophers, and other maverick intellectuals found fertile ground here for the growth of their ideas and the harvesting of their work.  The goal of the Fonte Aretusa organization is to revive the distinctive spirit of Western Greece by exploring it from a variety of disciplinary perspectives including art history, archaeology, classics, drama, epigraphy, history, philosophy and religion.

Plato's Alcibiades I

20-22 Sept. 2018, Cambridge (UK)
Abstract submission deadline: 15 July 2018

Although the Platonic dialogue Alcibiades I was highly regarded in late antiquity and occupied a prominent place within the Neoplatonist curriculum, the dialogue has suffered from relative neglect both within classical and philosophical scholarship ever since Schleiermacher denounced it as spurious at the beginning of the 19th century. This conference will be dedicated wholly to the Alcibiades I, bringing together scholars who have been central in rekindling recent interest in the dialogue while also welcoming contributions from new researchers on the dialogue, including early career researchers and graduate students. Questions that might be addressed include, but are not limited to, questions about self-hood and self-knowledge, the soul-body relationship, politics and political influence, love, the role of the divine within the dialogue, as well as questions about authenticity and the place of the Alcibiades I within – or outside of – the Platonic corpus.

The Association of American Colleges & Universities and the American Association of University Professors have recently signed on to a statement condemning the multi-front attack on the Humanities and a Liberal Arts education. 

"The disciplines of the liberal arts—and the overall benefit of a liberal education--are exemplary in this regard, for they foster intellectual curiosity about questions that will never be definitively settled..."

You can read the full statement here: https://www.aacu.org/about/statements/2018/joint-statement-value-liberal...

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(Photo: "The Death of Socrates" by Jacques-Louis David, public domain)

CALL FOR PAPERS

Migrants and Refugees In the Law: Historic Evolution, Current Situation and Unsolved Questions

Murcia, Spain. December 12-14, 2018

International Chair Innocent III calls on all interested researchers to submit papers related to the human mobility and the reception of refugees according to History of Law, Canon Law, Roman Law, Comparative Law, Philosophy, Theology, History, Sociology, Historiography and any other discipline related to the main theme, as stated in the following:

SESSIONS

December 12: session 1. THE MIGRATION IN THE ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL HISTORY. Historical approach to human mobility.

December 13: session 2. NATION, STATE, REVOLUTION. The situation of the migrants and the refugees from the origin of the modern State.

December 14: session 3. BETWEEN EMERGENCY AND ORDINARINESS: Proposals for the enhancement of a constant phenomenon in the contemporary age.

PROPOSALS

Title, academic affiliation, short CV and Abstract - 200 words - (EN, IT, ES, DE, FR), via mail: catedrainocencio@gmail.com

DEADLINE

September 15, 2018. The Scientific Committee will respond to the proposal before September 30, 2018.

PUBLICATION