Classics department hosting two-day conference to discuss Ovid's epic poem the Metamorpheses

| Thu, 02/21/13

"Echo and Narcissus" (1903) by John William Waterhouse

The Florida State University Department of Classics will host its Spring 2013 Langford Conference on Feb. 22-23. The conference, which is free and open to the public, will have as its topic “Repetition in the Metamorphoses.”

The Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem in 15 books by the Roman poet Ovid. It describes describing the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose historical framework. Completed in 8 A.D, it is recognized as a masterpiece of Golden Age Latin literature. One of the most-read of all classical works during the Middle Ages, the Metamorphosescontinues to exert a profound influence on Western culture.

The two-day Langford Conference will bring together a group of well-established Ovidian scholars from throughout the United States, Canada and Europe to discuss the means and ways of Ovidian repetition. The majority of the scholars’ papers will speak specifically of repetition within the Metamorphoses, but some will broaden the scope to include both Ovid’s use of previous poetic material and later poets’ use of the treasure trove of the Metamorphoses.

The 2013 Langford Conference will take place:

FRIDAY – SATURDAY, FEB. 22-23

AUGUSTUS B. TURNBULL III FLORIDA STATE CONFERENCE CENTER

SPECIFIC TIMES AVAILABLE AT HTTP://CLASSICS.FSU.EDU/ABOUT-THE-DEPARTMENT/LANGFORD-ENDOWMENT/UPCOMING-LANGFORD-CONFERENCES

555 W. PENSACOLA ST.

TALLAHASSEE, FLA.

Professor Roy Gibson of the University of Manchester (England) is director of the conference. The speakers and their paper topics are:

  • Aude Doody, University College Dublin (Ireland): “Pliny on Greek Art”
  • Trevor Murphy, University of California, Berkeley: “Exploration in Pliny and in Plutarch’s Moralia”
  • Sandra Citroni Marchetti, Universita di Firenze (Italy): “The Ciceronian Model in Pliny the Elder’s Cultural Program”
  • Eugenia Lao, Independent Scholar: “Pliny’s Trees: Taxonomy as a Tool for Cultural History”
  • Antony Augoustakis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: “Recycling Hecuba”
  • Alessandro Barchiesi, University of Siena (Italy) and Stanford University: Title TBA
  • Andrew Feldherr, Princeton University: “Ovid’s Phaethon: A Tale of
  • ‘Whoa!’”
  • Stephen Hinds, University of Washington: “Return to Enna: Ovid and Ovidianism in Claudian’s De Raptu Proserpinae”
  • Sharon James, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: “Rape and Repetition, Myth and History: Repeated Structures in Ovid’s Metamorphoses”
  • Alison Keith, University of Toronto: “Ovidian Itineraries in Flavian Epic”
  • Peter Knox, University of Colorado: “Metamorphoses in a Cold Climate”
  • Danielle Meinrath, Princeton University: “Metamorphoses as Child and the Roman Book Trade”
  • Sara Watkins, Bucknell University (Pennsylvania): “Repetition of Chaos – From Ovid to Lucan”

Through the support of the Langford family of Tallahassee, the Department of Classics, located within Florida State’s College of Arts and Sciences, has been able to advance an understanding of the ancient world in multiple ways, notably by bringing to campus as teachers and researchers Langford Family Eminent Scholars and by hosting international conferences that bring to FSU leading researchers in a wide variety of subjects.

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Classics