No one is to be found who has nothing
attained from education.


Nemo reperitur qui sit studio nihil consecutus.

Quintilian, The Orator's Education 1.1.2

Events organised by the centre

Seminars

Lisbon Classics Seminar: Oliver Baldwin (British Academy/ University of Reading)

Queer Bromius: LGBT versions of The Bacchae

Since Graeco-Roman antiquity, Dionysus has appeared to many as the god who traces and confuses the liminality between masculine and feminine, between excess and ritual. The subversive power of Dionysus in destabilising patriarchal and gender-sexual norms lies at the very centre of Euripides’ The Bacchae. As the tragedy progresses, Pentheus, the authoritarian and patriarchal king of Thebes, gradually succumbs to the powers and seduction of the newcomer Dionysus. As a result, Pentheus dresses up as a bacchant to join the Bacchic celebration that he himself had prohibited, where he will be finally murdered and dismembered at the hands of the followers of the victorious Dionysus.

Given the gender-questioning and subversive power of Dionysus, it is not surprising that Euripides’ Dionysian tragedy has received great attention from theatre creators interested in exploring the non-heteronormative, even anti-heterosexist, potential of this ancient tragedy. In fact, just months before the Stonewall rebellion in New York, in 1969, Richard Schechner was already exploring the same-sex erotic and physical seduction of Dionysus over Pentheus in his renowned production Dionysus in 69. Since then, The Bacchae has become the most widely used and successful ancient tragedy in the broader phenomenon of LGBT stage versions of Greek tragedy, the focus of my Queer Tragedy project.

In this seminar I will explore three productions that took place at different historical moments and geographic locations to understand how The Bacchae and its queer god Dionysus have been used to expose LGBT identities, eroticism, and politics, and thus question, dismantle, and subvert heteronormative power:  Allain Rochel’s gay The Bacchae (Los Angeles, USA, 2007); Enrique Olmos de Ita’s trans/travesti Bacantes after party (Aguas Calientes, Mexico, 2019); and Gay Sweatshop’s Lesbian version of The Bacchae, Kitchen Matters (London, UK, 1990). With these three examples, and mentions and illustrations of others, it will be possible to elucidate more precisely how and why Dionysus appears as the queer god par excellence on the international LGBT stage.

START AND END DATE: 2023-05-12

LOCATION: Sala C128 (sala de actos)

ORGANIZED BY: CEC

Lisbon Classics Seminar: Magdalena Bournot (University of Lille)

The adaptations of Greek Tragedies in Latin America


START AND END DATE: 2023-04-21

LOCATION: C013

ORGANIZED BY: CEC

Lisbon Flavian Seminars 2022-2023

The Lisbon Flavian Seminars commenced in 2020 as a forum for Flavian scholars to share their research ideas online during the COVID-19 pandemic. The organizers have continued the Seminars on an occasional basis for scholars who are interested in the Flavian era. In 2023 we have scheduled three seminars so far:

 

First Lisbon Flavian Seminar (January)

Speaker: Adalberto Magnavacca (University of Geneva)
Title: “‘(In)scripti Pueri, (In)scriptae Puellae’: Mimetic Desire and Intertextuality in the Corpus Priapeorum
Date: 27 January 2023 (Friday)
Time: 17:00 (Lisbon time)

 

Second Lisbon Flavian Seminar (March)

Speaker: Lauren Ginsberg (Duke University)
Title: “Sites of Memory, Sites of Violence: The Catalogue of Julio-Claudian Women in the Octavia”
Date: 24 March 2023 (Friday)
Time: 17:00 (Lisbon time)

 

Third Lisbon Flavian Seminar (May)

Speaker: Rosario Moreno Soldevila (Pablo de Olavide University of Seville)
Title: “Women of Letters in Martial’s Epigrams”
Date: 26 May 2023 (Friday)
Time: 17:00 (Lisbon time)

 

Each session of the Lisbon Flavian Seminars is envisaged as a meeting point for all scholars who are interested in the Flavian era. All scholars who wish to participate in these online seminars are welcome to register with us. A Zoom link will be sent to all registrants a day or so prior to each seminar. You can send a request for registration to one of the organizers below. If you have previously registered for the Lisbon Flavian Seminars, you do not need to send us another request unless you have not received a response from the organizers, in which case we kindly request that you contact us again. (If you wish to remove your name from the list of registrants, you need only to send us a brief e-mail message to request this.)

We hope that these online seminars will contribute to the discussion of issues of the Flavian era, including in such areas as literature, history, and archaeology, which are of concern to scholars working in this area at a time when we are all constrained by the coronavirus from attending conferences and seminars in person.

 

START AND END DATE: 2023-01-27 / 2023-05-26

LOCATION: Zoom (registration necessary)

ORGANIZED BY: CEC

INFORMATION AND REGISTRATIONS: Ana Lóio (analoio@campus.ul.pt) William Dominik (williamjdominik@campus.ul.pt)

Conferences and Workshops

Call for Papers: Congresso Internacional ‘Pliny the Elder: Medicine, Magic, and Religion’

In 2023 the world will celebrate the bimillenary of the birth of Pliny the Elder, who is a widely known author but not studied as much as he deserves. Despite the general interest shown in Pliny and his Natural History, there is still much to explore in his work. Examples of important titles of Plinian scholarship include the monograph of Beagon (1992) and her commentary on Book 7 of the Natural History (2005); Doody’s monograph on the reception of Pliny’s Natural History (2010); the edited volume of Gibson and Morello (2011); and the edited volume of Traina and Vial-Logeay (2022).

In order to foster further investigation of Pliny and explore themes and issues that have not yet been fully investigated, the Centre for Classical Studies of the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon, in collaboration with the Sapienza Università di Roma, is organising two international conferences on the theme ‘Pliny the Elder: Medicine, Magic, and Religion’ to be held during the autumn of 2023.

The main goal of these conferences is to study the books of Pliny’s Naturalis Historia that have particular significance in three areas that frequently intersect: medicine, magic, and religion. Researchers and scholars of Pliny and of these areas are invited to submit abstracts for papers to be delivered at these conferences. Speakers are encouraged to employ philological, historical, historico-religious, and anthropological approaches in their presentations, which may investigate any of the following (or other) topics:

Pliny and medicine
• Pliny’s sources;
• medical areas are covered;
• the reception of Pliny in ancient, medieval and Renaissance medicine.

Pliny and magic
• views of Pliny on magic;
• practices;
• (possible) relation to medicine and/or religion.

Pliny and religion
• superstitio and prodigia;
•Pliny and ancient religion;
• deities, rituals and religious practices.

Proposals for a 20-minute presentation should be sent to pliniusbimillenary@gmail.com by 31 March 2023. Abstracts should have a maximum of 300 words and include a short biographical note with academic affiliation(s) and main publications (100 words). Provisional places and dates for these conferences are Lisbon (19-20 October 2023) and Rome (9-10 November 2023). The organisers plan to host the presentation of papers on medicine in Lisbon and papers on magic and religion in Rome. These places and dates will be confirmed so that participants can make appropriate travel plans well in advance of the conferences.

The working languages for these conferences will be English and Italian.

START AND END DATE: 2023-01-26 / 2023-03-31

ORGANIZED BY: CEC, Sapienza Università di Roma

CALL FOR PAPERS: Open File

Courses

No other courses at the moment.

Other

In Flore Novo

Encontro de jovens investigadores

Primeira sessão deste ano do encontro In Flore Novo, para comemorar o seu décimo aniversário

START AND END DATE: 2023-03-23 / 2023-03-24

LOCATION: Universidade de Évora

ORGANIZED BY: CEC

MORE INFO: Open File

Terceiro Encontro do GIRPAM

START AND END DATE: 2023-06-01 / 2023-06-02

LOCATION: Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa

ORGANIZED BY: Bruno Bureau, Michele Cutino, Paulo Farmhouse Alberto, Fotini Hdjittofi

Outreach

No outreach events at the moment.