CALL. 20.04.2016: Into the Wild: Flora and Fauna in the Classical World - Los Angeles (USA)

FECHA LÍMITE/DEADLINE/SCADENZA: 20/04/2016

FECHA CONGRESO/CONGRESS DATE/DATA CONGRESSO: 21-22/10/2016

LUGAR/LOCATION/LUOGO: University of California Los Angeles (Lon Angeles, USA)

ORGANIZADOR/ORGANIZER/ORGANIZZATORE: Classics Department at the University of California Los Angeles

INFO: web - florafauna2016ucla@gmail.com

CALL:

In recent years, scholars in the humanities and social sciences have turned to animals and ecologies in their research. The Tellus panel of the Ara Pacis Augustae shows the intersection between the artistic depiction of animals and plants on the one hand, and the material culture and politics of the Augustan period on the other. Plants and animals play a pervasive role in metaphor and myth in classical literature from Homer onwards and in ancient conceptual frameworks. Contemporary theory is also indebted to this trend. Gilles Deleuze, for example, writes: “Thought is not arborescent, and the brain is not a rooted or ramified matter. Many people have a tree growing in their heads, but the brain itself is much more a grass than a tree.” The graduate students in the Classics Department at the University of California Los Angeles are pleased to announce the forthcoming graduate conference “Into the Wild: Flora and Fauna in the Classical World”, which will take place October 21-22, 2016 at UCLA and will feature a keynote address by Professor Mark Payne (University of Chicago). Graduate students in Classics and related fields are welcome to submit proposals for papers on topics including, but not limited to, the following themes:

● ethical implications of the relationship between humans and flora/fauna

● flora and fauna as means of comparison for the construction of human identity

● animals in sacrifice and ritual

● ancient agricultural practices and/or their depiction in art and literature

● flora and fauna in material culture through theoretical or archaeological models

Abstracts (ca. 300 words, .pdf files) must be submitted to florafauna2016ucla@gmail.com by April 20, 2016. Please do NOT include your name and affiliation in the .pdf. Papers should be 20 minutes in length at the most. Applicants will be notified of their status a month after the deadline. For more information, visit the conference website: http://classicsgradconference.humanities.ucla.edu/