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International conference: 24-26 June 2014
Over the past few decades scholars have examined the reception of classical drama across various continents and in a variety of contexts. Most of the research, however, has focused on Europe, Africa, and North America. Given its vast geographical size and cultural diversity, Latin America remains relatively unexplored, though it has garnered some attention in recent years.
This international conference seeks to explore the broad afterlife of Greek and Roman tragedy and comedy in Latin American theatre in the modern period. Latin American dramatists have repeatedly engaged with their classical forebears in order to interrogate and debate new political, social and religious paradigms. Especially in the past few decades, the region has seen a number of pioneering theatrical adaptations of classical drama that directly address the turbulence of the twentieth century and the dilemmas of postcolonial reality. Latin American 'Antígonas', for example, make use of their Athenian prototype as a means to explore issues that are pertinent to the region's painful history of social and political conflicts.
Papers will approach the topic from a variety of theoretical and interdisciplinary perspectives. Case studies to be examined include plays from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Martinique, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. We will discuss the ways in which ancient drama has been used to articulate a range of issues (pertaining to gender, politics, race and violence) in modern societies. We will also consider rewritings that have initiated a chain of modern receptions through which ancient themes and ideas have migrated across national or regional borders.
By bringing together scholars from Europe, North and South America, the conference - the first of its kind to be organized at an international level - seeks to address the broad appeal and continuing relevance of classical drama in a diverse and multicultural region such as Latin America. By focusing on texts that are relatively unknown in the Anglophone world, the conference aims to fill an important gap in the scholarship on the afterlife of classical drama. We also hope to establish lasting links between scholars working in the northern and southern hemispheres.
Registration is now CLOSED.
Participants
Rosa Andújar (University College London, UK)
Anastasia Bakogianni (The Open University, UK)
Francisco Barrenechea (University of Maryland, College Park, USA)
Aníbal Biglieri (University of Kentucky, USA)
Fernando Brandão dos Santos (Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil)
Geraldine Brodie (University College London, UK)
Jacques Bromberg (Duke University, USA)
Carolina Brncić (Universidad de Chile/Fondecyt)
Chris Carey (University College London, UK)
Maria Cecília de Miranda Nogueira Coelho (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil)
Katherine Ford (East Carolina University, USA)
Moira Fradinger (Yale University, USA)
Cesar Gemelli (University of Notre Dame, USA)
Rodrigo Tadeu Gonçalves (Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil)
Lorna Hardwick (The Open University, UK) *Keynote speaker*
Tom Hawkins (Ohio State University, USA)
Seth Jeppesen (Brigham Young University, USA)
Irmtrud König (Universidad de Chile)
Andrew Laird (University of Warwick, UK)
Miriam Leonard (University College London, UK)
Brenda López (Universidad de Chile)
Fiona Macintosh (APGRD and Oxford University, UK)
Mónica Maffía (Universidad de Buenos Aires and Grupo de Teatro FyL, Argentina)
Justine McConnell (Oxford University, UK)
M. Florencia Nelli (Oxford University, UK)
Konstantinos P. Nikoloutsos (Saint Joseph's University, USA)
Tiziana Ragno (Università degli Studi di Foggia, Italy)
Isabella Tardin Cardoso (Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil)
Phiroze Vasunia (University of Reading, UK)
Jesse Weiner (Illinois Wesleyan University, USA)
Maria Wyke (University College London, UK)
Vanda Zajko (University of Bristol, UK)
Should you have any questions about the conference, please contact the organisers, Dr Rosa Andújar (UCL) or Dr Konstantinos P. Nikoloutsos (Saint Joseph's University, USA)
The conference is generously supported by the A. G. Leventis Foundation (UCL Leventis Fund), the Institute of Classical Studies, the Institute of Latin American Studies, SLAS (the UK Society for Latin American Studies), the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, the Classical Association, the Gilbert Murray Trust, and the UCL Faculty Institute of Graduate Studies (FIGS).
