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3-4 April 2014
University College London
A European Classic
While T. S. Eliot celebrated the Aeneid as 'the classic of all Europe', the importance of Virgil's Georgics within European cultural traditions has often been overlooked. This interdisciplinary and international conference will provide the forum for a long-overdue reappraisal of the Georgics and its contribution to the history of European art, thought, and literature. A diverse range of speakers from three continents will gather to offer new perspectives on this rich and enigmatic poem.
Registration
The registration fee is £20 (£12 for a single day), to cover the cost of lunch and refreshments. Attendance is free for UCL students and staff. Please register here.
Information on graduate student bursaries is available here.
Venue
D103 UCLU Building, 25 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AY
UCL routefinder here and campus maps here
Googlemap here
Conference Programme
- Thursday, 3 April
8.45-9.30 Registration and Welcome (Nick Freer & Bobby Xinyue)
9.30 Keynote Address
Damien Nelis (Geneva)
"History and Geography in Virgil's Georgics"
10.15-10.45 Tea
Panel 1:
Clearing the Ground (Chair: Maria Wyke)
10.45 Stephen Heyworth (Oxford)
"Clearing the Ground in Georgics 1"
11.20 K. Sara Myers (Virginia/Cambridge)
"Pulpy Fiction: Columella's numerosus hortus and Georgics 4.116-48"
11.55 Rebecca Armstrong (Oxford)
"The War on Terra: Insurgent Weeds in the Georgics"
12.30-13.45 Lunch
Panel 2:
Religion in the Georgics (Chair: Luke Houghton)
13.45 Tom Mackenzie (Oxford)
"Georgica and Orphica: The Georgics in the Context of Orphic Poetry and Religion"
14.20 Ailsa Hunt (Cambridge)
"Reading Georgic Religion with Servius"
Panel 3:
Tragedy & Comedy (Chair: Philippa Bather)
15.00 Ian Goh (Manchester)
"Slim Pickings? A Dash of Comedy in Virgil's Georgics"
15.35 Elena Giusti (Cambridge)
"Bunte Barbaren Setting up the Stage: Re-inventing the Barbarian on the Georgics' Theatre-Temple (G. 3.1-48)"
16.10-16.40 Tea
Panel 4:
Epic & Elegy (Chair: Stephen Harrison)
16.40 James Burbidge (New Hall School)
"Arms and the Land: Warfare and Agriculture in Virgil's Georgics and Aeneid"
17.15 Florence Klein (Lille)
"Posidippus' aesthetical theories and the Georgics: A New Look at Virgil's 'Callimacheanism'"
17.50-19.10 Reception
19.30 Conference Dinner
- Friday, 4 April
10.00 Keynote Address
Richard Thomas (Harvard)
"Aesthetics and Meaning in the Georgics"
10.45-11.15 Tea
Panel 5:
New Approaches to the Georgics (Chair: Gail Trimble)
11.15 Robert Cowan (Sydney)
"The Story of rus: Towards a Narratology of the Georgics"
11.50 Martin Stöckinger (Heidelberg)
"From munera vestra cano to ipse dona feram: Language of Social Reciprocity in the Georgics"
12.30-13.45 Lunch
Panel 6:
Modern Georgic Landscapes (Chair: Gesine Manuwald)
13.45 Luke Houghton (LBI, Innsbruck)
"Salve, magna parens: Virgil's laudes Italiae in Renaissance Italy and Beyond"
14.20 Raymond Lambert (Birkbeck)
"'Hard Pastoral': John Constable's Georgic Landscapes"
14.55 Katharine Earnshaw (Oxford)
"Shelley's Georgic Landscape"
15.30-16.00 Tea
Panel 7:
Modern Reception (Chair: Fiachra Mac Góráin)
16.00 Stephen Harrison (Oxford)
"Three Laureates' Georgics: Translations by Dryden, Wordsworth, Day Lewis"
16.35 Rowena Fowler (Bristol)
"Si credere dignum est: Crediting the Georgics from Browning to Hill"
17.10 Séverine Tarantino (Lille)
"The Teaching of the Georgics in Twentieth-Century France and England"
For further information please contact the conference organizers Nick Freer and Bobby Xinyue at georgics2014ucl@gmail.com
We gratefully acknowledge the generous support of our sponsors, the Institute of Classical Studies, the Classical Association, the UCL European Institute, the Faculty Institute of Graduate Studies at UCL's Arts and Humanities Faculty, and the Virgil Society.
