CALL. 31.01.2019: The Popular in Classical Antiquity - Philadelphia (PA, USA)
FECHA LÍMITE/DEADLINE/SCADENZA: 31/01/2019
FECHA CONGRESO/CONGRESS DATE/DATA CONGRESSO: 26/04/2019
LUGAR/LOCATION/LUOGO: University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA, USA)
ORGANIZADOR/ORGANIZER/ORGANIZZATORE: Amy Lewis, Nikola Golubović, and Jordan Rogers (Graduate students, University of Pennsylvania)
INFO: call - popularupenn2019@gmail.com
CALL:
What is popular culture in the ancient world? How can we study it? Why should we study it? In recent years the discipline of Classical Studies has sought to move away from its traditionally elite bias and broaden investigation of the ancient world to include popular culture. From Johann Gottfried Herder’s work on folk songs in the 18th century to Lucy’s Grig’s recent edited volume, the “popular” has been variously defined: as folk culture located in the rural tradition; as mass culture in urbanized centers; as the opposite of “high” or “literate” culture; and as unauthorized culture expressed as resistance. One of the aims of this conference is to discuss the validity of such definitions for the Classical world.
Methodological questions are also a central concern; given that most surviving texts from ancient Greece and Rome were produced by and for the elite, what evidence is available for the study of the popular, and how do we account for the elite bias? We can look, perhaps, to popular characters such as Thersites in the Iliad or poets from Hipponax to Martial who engage with the popular through persona or language; we might consider whether the ancient theater was a site of popular entertainment or whether genres such as the novel, fable, and mime communicate a popular sentiment. For the study of the non-elite, material, visual, and historical evidence can be especially illuminating. What can the archaeology of the poor, “small politics” (Grey) or the “culture of the plebs” (Horsfall, Courrier) contribute to an understanding of popular culture? What are the popular lives of images, and how can we understand their place in popular culture? Finally, can we say that in the Classical World there is a “popular” aesthetic, either in literature or art, or even a singular definition of the “popular”? We welcome submissions on both Greek and Roman topics, but would particularly encourage the former.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
· Theoretical approaches to the popular across multiple disciplines
· Uncovering the popular in historical, archaeological, and art historical sources
· Graffiti, letters, and non-elite “everyday” writing
· Popular politics e.g. 5th century Athenian democracy under Cleon, or the Gracchi’s popular land reforms
· Examining popular art through style, motif, or subject matter
· Popular religion
· Identifying popular themes or genres in Classical literature
· Why is the “popular” so often equated with the “bad”?
· Popular audiences
· Comparative work in other fields e.g. can anthropological or sociological case studies enlighten study of the “popular” in the Classical world?
· The reception of “popular” literature beyond the Greek and Roman world.
Deadline for submission: Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words (plus brief bibliography) by January 31st 2019 topopularupenn2019@gmail.com. Papers should be no more than 20 minutes in length. Please include name, affiliation, and contact information in the email but not in the abstract itself.