top of page

Paradeigmata: Examples and Precedents across Time -13-14/06/2019, (London, England)



The Ancient Greeks used analogical reasoning as a key cognitive and heuristic device: comparisons of new situations with past events or similar circumstances helped foster their understanding of new situations and created expectations about the potential outcome of their decisions. In classical rhetorical theory, Aristotle describes examples as inductive arguments from analogy, central to logical reasoning (Rh. 1357b 28-30); meanwhile, Anaximenes highlights the role of past actions in lending credibility to a certain statement (Rh. Al. 1429a 22-28). Speakers could indeed resort to past events and historical figures to urge or discourage a course of action, to give post factum justification to certain choices, to comfort an addressee (non tibi hoc soli), or to emphasize the uniqueness of a given situation.


The conference will include talks by Prof. Emmanuelle Danblon (L'Université Libre de Bruxelles), Dr. Jon Hesk (University of St. Andrews), Dr. Kathryn Tempest (University of Roehampton).



FECHA/DATE/DATA: 13-14/06/2019


LUGAR/LOCATION/LUOGO: Senate House (London, England)

ORGANIZADOR/ORGANIZER/ORGANIZZATORE: William Coles (RHUL); Giulia Maltagliati (RHUL); Matthew John Mordue (Roehampton); Katy Mortimer (RHUL); Dimitrios Xerikos (Roehampton).


INFO: examplesandprecedents@gmail.com


INSCRIPCIÓN/REGISTRATION/REGISTRAZIONE: Deadline: 03/06/2019


Se ruega enviar un email a /please contact /sono pregati di inviare una e-mail a examplesandprecedents@gmail.com

Lunch and refreshments will be provided.


On the evening of the 13th there will be a dinner at a local restaurant. If you wish to attend (at your own expense) please indicate this in your registration email.


Thanks to the generosity of the Classical Association, we are able to offer a number of small bursaries to postgraduate students to subsidise any travel expenses. If you are interested in applying, please email examplesandprecedents@gmail.com stating your reasons for wanting to attend the conference and whether you have other funds available.


PROGRAMA/PROGRAM/PROGRAMMA:


DAY ONE: Thursday, 13th of June


13:00: Registration and welcome


13:30-13:45: Introduction (Giulia Maltagliati and William Coles, Centre for Oratory and Rhetoric, RHUL)


13:45:15-15: Panel 1 (Chair: Giulia Maltagliati)

Simone Corvasce (Pisa): The ancient theory of paradigm and Pindaric myth

Sabrina Mancuso (Pisa-Tübingen): Ino and Procne in Euripides’ tragedies: use of two mythical paradigms

Guy Westwood (Oxford): Paradigms on Stage: Comedy, Oratory, and Historical examples in Classical Athens


15:15: Break


15:45: Keynote 1

Jon Hesk (St. Andrews): Analogy, metaphor, example. Reframing and folk psychology in Athenian deliberative speeches


16:45-17:15: Break


17:15-18:45: Panel 2 (Chair: tbc)

Irene Giaquinta (Catania): Demosthenes’ historical examples in the Against Aristocrates

Benoît Sans (Bruxelles): Paradeigma: an ambiguous way of proof

Antiopi Argyriou-Casmeridis (RHUL): Moral paradeigmata in Hellenistic honorific decrees: arete as a living example


18:45-19:30: Wine reception


19:30: Conference dinner


DAY TWO: Friday, 14th of June


9:00-9:30: Tea/Coffee


9:30-10:30: Panel 3 (Chair: William Coles)


Steven Cosnett: Scipio Africanus as a negative exemplum in Livy

Elizabeth McKnight (UCL): The use of exempla-based legal argument – Cicero, the jurists and the modern common law


10:30: Keynote 2

Kathryn Tempest (Roehampton): Engineering Exemplarity: The case of M. Iunius Brutus


11:30: Coffee break


12:00-13:00: Panel 4 (Chair: Martina Russo)

Johanna Cordes (Hamburg): Mythological Examples in Ovid’s Ars amatoria

Matthew Mordue (Roehampton): Negative Exempla in Pliny the Younger’s Epistles


13:00-14:00: Lunch


14:00-15:00: Panel 5 (Chair: Kyriakoula Tzortzopoulou)

William Guast (Bristol): Declamation as Exemplum

Katarzyna Jazdzewska (Warsaw): Animal Paradeigmata in Imperial Greek Prose


15:00-15:20: Short break


15:20-16:20: Panel 6 (Chair: Katy Mortimer)

Annette Baertschi (Bryn Mawr): Exemplarity in Petrarch’s Africa

Jessica Thorne (RHUL): Bending the Bars: Franco’s Political Prisoners and the British Left, 1960-1975


Concluding Remarks (Giulia Maltagliati and William Coles, Centre for Oratory and Rhetoric, RHUL)

categorías / tags / categorie

bottom of page