CALL. 31.05.2017: Fidelity of Fides: Authenticity in the Classical World - Toronto (Canada)
The Graduate Students of the Department of Classics at the University of Toronto are requesting submissions for their conference "The Fidelity of Fides: Authenticity in the Classical World", to be hosted in October. We are looking for papers on all aspects of Greece and Rome, from poetry to historiography, from archaeology to theory.
Keynote Speakers: James Porter (University of California, Berkeley), Erik Gunderson (University of Toronto)
FECHA LÍMITE/DEADLINE/SCADENZA: 31/05/2017
FECHA CONGRESO/CONGRESS DATE/DATA CONGRESSO: 13-14/10/2017
LUGAR/LOCATION/LUOGO: Department of Classics, University of Toronto (Toronto, Canada)
ORGANIZADOR/ORGANIZER/ORGANIZZATORE: Graduate Student Conference Committee, University of Toronto
INFO: web - ClassicsGSC@utoronto.ca
CALL:
The question of authenticity – that is, fidelity to the truth, in whatever form it takes – remained at the forefront of Greek and Roman minds. Ancient authors since the time of Homer lingered over the question of whether something or someone accurately reflected what was “true,” and we see the ripples of this problem in the minds of ancient historiographers, orators, playwrights, poets, and even in surviving inscriptions and papyri. Notions of truth defined individual and collective identities, served political ends, and shaped philosophical outlooks in the Graeco-Roman world. Likewise, questions of authenticity remain rooted in our minds today as we examine the material and literary culture of the past: are the artifacts we have accurate representations of the classical world? Do the texts present the world as it was, or in an idealized fashion? Can there be any accurate representation, in words or material, of the truth? To what extent was truth even important at all in the ancient world? Our conference aims to investigate the ways in which ancient peoples grappled with the issues of authenticity, and how we too today deal with the issue of “truth” and “authenticity” when dealing with the fragmented written and material evidence which survives from the ancient world. The Graduate Students of the Department of Classics at the University of Toronto are seeking papers that will examine questions of authenticity in all subdivisions of Classics and related disciplines, including (but not limited to) philology, history, art history, archaeology, women and gender studies, science and medicine, philosophy, and reception studies. Potential areas of investigation could include, but are not limited to: • The purpose and consequence of forged objects and sites, such as counterfeit currency or the Casa Romuli • Conceptions of “authentic” civic identity as defined against the intrusion of homines novi and metics into the Roman and Athenian states • Autobiographical and civic representation in epigraphy • Pseudepigraphic writings and (potentially) misattributed poems, such as the works of Pseudo-Plutarch, the Catalepton of Virgil, and the Halieutica of Ovid • Textual criticism and its impact on the authenticity of an original text • The received arrangement of a text (e.g. the poetic libellus) as representative of the text’s original conception • The conceits and authenticity of the presented world in poetry, historiography, and other literary modes • Sincerity of the poetic voice and persona • Mimesis as representation of the world • Ancient and modern theories of translation, and “corruption” in adaptation, such as the interpretatio Romana, the translations of Callimachus by Catullus, and Roman appropriations of Greek terms • Ancient conceptions of the self, and the deceit of self-representation • Philosophical attempts at capturing “the true” M.A. students, Ph.D. students, and recent recipients of graduate degrees are invited to submit anonymized abstracts (.doc/.pdf) of no more than 300 words, for papers of 15–20 minutes in length, to ClassicsGSC@utoronto.ca by May 31, 2017. Accepted participants will be notified by email before the end of July.