Celtic Classics Conference: Disgust in Greek and Roman Literature, History and Art
Edinburgh

Coordinated by Professor Donald Lateiner (Ohio Wesleyan University, USA) and Dr Dimos Spatharas (University of Crete) Click here to download the Call for Papers

Australian Historical Association (AHA) Conference
Brisbane

The 2014 Australian Historical Association (AHA) Conference – to be held in Brisbane from 7-11 July 2014 – will have a stream devoted to papers in Classics and Ancient History. The overall conference theme is 'Conflict in History', and this theme will be interpreted broadly for scholars of the ancient world. Details may be found at:

http://www.theaha.org.au/conferences.html

Could prospective Classics and Ancient History delegates please register with the general body of attendees, as indicated on the conference website. We would also ask that you send a separate email to Janette McWilliam (j.mcwilliam@uq.edu.au) and Tom Stevenson (t.stevenson@uq.edu.au) with titles and abstracts, and for any further information. Postgraduates should feel particularly welcome.

Science/Fiction/History: The Literary in Classical Historiography
Athens, Greece

A significant trend in the study of Greek historiographers is to accept that their works are to a degree both science and fiction. More and more, scholars accept that Herodotus and Thucydides, for example, do not draw the same line between literary and historical prose that we find in modern works. On the contrary, both authors show—at least on the surface—a concern for impact and accuracy. As scholarly interest broadens, in addition to evaluating ancient historians on the basis of the reliability of the information they record, and verifying the narratives against various elements of the material record (inscriptions, excavations, numismatics), new studies are beginning to elaborate on the stylistic and narrative qualities of the texts themselves.

The organizers of the conference invite investigations into this new perspective. Papers considering any aspect of the literary qualities of Greek and Latin historiography are welcomed from scholars at any point in their careers.

Click here for further information

Augustus from a Distance
A conference in the bi-millennial year of the death of Gaius Iulius Caesar Octavianus Augustus at the University of Sydney

Caesar Augustus died at Nola on 19 August, 14. On conventional dating, 2014 marks 2000 years since his death and offers a chance to reflect on the man, his history, the culture named after him and the different ways that scholarship studies and has studied him.

Conveners: Eleanor Cowan, Geraldine Herbert-Brown, Andrew Pettinger and Kathryn Welch.

Confirmed speakers include Dr Barbara Levick and Professor Nicholas Purcell. Professor Karl Galinsky will deliver the 21st Todd Memorial Lecture during the conference.

Call for Papers and Conference Website

Byzantine Culture in Translation
18th Biennial Conference, University of Queensland

Byzantine culture emanated from Constantinople throughout the Middle Ages, eastwards into Muslim lands and central Asia, north into Russian, Germanic and Scandinavian territories, south across the Mediterranean into Egypt and North Africa and westwards to Italy, Sicily and the other remnants of the western Roman empire. Byzantine culture was translated, transported and transmitted into all these areas through slow or sudden processes of permeation, osmosis and interaction throughout the life of the Empire, from the fourth century to the fifteenth and far beyond. Various literary aspects of Byzantine culture that were literally translated from Greek into the local and scholarly languages of the Medieval West and Muslim Middle East include dreambooks, novels, medical and scientific texts and works of Ancient Greek literature. Yet translation was a phenomenon that stretched far beyond texts, into the areas of clothing and fashion, the visual arts (especially icons) and architecture, military organisations, imperial court ceremonial, liturgical music and mechanical devices. This conference celebrates all aspects of literary, spiritual or material culture that were transported across the breadth of the Empire and exported from it. Papers are welcome on all aspects of Byzantine culture that exerted some influence – whether lasting or fleeting – and were translated into non-Greek-speaking lands, from the early Byzantine period to the present day.

Call for papers and conference website