CALL. 01/12/2016: Lucan in His Contemporary Contexts - Provo (UT, USA)
Keynote speaker: Paul Roche (University of Sydney)
Interest in the poet Lucan and his epic on Roman civil war has grown steadily over the past several decades, leading to a better understanding of the Bellum Civile and the variety of political and poetic themes at work (or even ‘at war’) within. Lucan’s own time period, however, is less commonly a central focus of research. The Bellum Civile has long been studied as exemplary of post-Vergilian imperial epic and as an essential creative conduit that invigorated subsequent Flavian epic. Yet it is also true that Lucan’s epic stands as a gateway to the world of Neronian Rome, the intellectual and geographical post-Augustan Roman space that Lucan inhabited and which in turn shaped his worldview. Accordingly, we seek to bring together scholars for a conference on the Neronian age with Lucan as a common connecting point for the papers and ideas presented. All artists are in constant conversation with their own cultural environment, and we envision a conference where that wider cultural environment of Neronian (and Claudian) Rome is placed in clear conversation with Lucan and his epic poem.
FECHA LÍMITE/DEADLINE/SCADENZA: 01/12/2016
FECHA CONGRESO/CONGRESS DATE/DATA CONGRESSO: 14-15/04/2017
LUGAR/LOCATION/LUOGO: Brigham Young University, Provo (Utah, USA)
ORGANIZADOR/ORGANIZER/ORGANIZZATORE: Mark Thorne ; Laura Zientek
INFO: web - Mark_Thorne@byu.edu ; Laura_Zientek@byu.edu
CALL:
We welcome proposals for papers (~25 minutes in length) from a variety of disciplinary perspectives that seek to place Lucan within the context of his own social, literary, cultural, and historical milieu. We are colloquially calling this the “Lucan+” approach – where the focus is less on Lucan’s interaction with preceding ages (e.g. Lucan’s intertextuality with Vergil) or his impact on later ages and more on how reading the Bellum Civile in conversation with other manifestations of his cultural environment (be they literary works or historical events or intellectual trends, etc.) can help shed helpful light on both. Possible lines of investigation may include (but are not limited to):
Lucan + contemporary coinage / inscriptions / art / architecture
Lucan + contemporary rhetoric / declamation schools
Lucan + contemporary approaches to history
Lucan + contemporary interactions with memory / trauma
Lucan + the Greek East / Hellenism
Lucan + imperial politics / religion
Lucan + geography
Lucan + Senecan philosophy / drama
Lucan + [contemporary author]
This is not a new way of approaching Lucan, but we see in this conference an opportunity to encourage more of this contemporary contextualization. Furthermore, while there have been several European conferences on Lucan in the past couple decades, this conference presents the opportunity to bring scholars of Lucan and any aspect of the Neronian age together in North America.
Finally, the conference will offer attendees the chance to discuss Lucan and his world in a beautiful setting amidst Utah’s Wasatch mountains. Paper sessions will take place both on the main campus of Brigham Young University and at the school’s mountain retreat center nestled on the slopes of Mount Timpanogos. There will also be an optional hiking tour for those interested after the conclusion of the conference on Saturday.
Submit abstracts of no more than 400 words to the conference organizers: Mark Thorne (Mark_Thorne@byu.edu) and Laura Zientek (Laura_Zientek@byu.edu). The deadline for submissions is December 1st.
We will be posting more information soon on the conference website