The Queens' Arts Seminar
Alternate Wednesdays (in Full Term), 7:15 for 7:30 pm
The Erasmus Room, Queens' College
For more information (or to recommend a speaker) please contact the conveners,
Dr. Daniel Cook & Johanna Hanink: quen-arts at lists.cam.ac.uk
Dr. Helen van Noorden, Junior Research Fellow, Clare College‘Golden ages and silver races: the point of looking back in ancient Greek literature’Abstract: The idea of a past Golden Age
of ease and peace is a central myth of Western culture. In ancient Greece, however, the point of describing the human world in metallic terms was
not nostalgia for a lost paradise. Rather, it was ethical instruction
for (non-golden) present audiences, in reference to the metallic story’s
first extant context in the poetry of Hesiod. But how, if at all, does
the reception of this narrative differ from that of other ‘classic’ passages found there (such as the story of Pandora)? And anyway, so
what? 29 October
Dr. Brycchan Carey, Reader in English, Kingston University
‘A quiet rhetoric? Uncovering the origins of the Quaker Antislavery International’
Abstract: Everyone knows that Quakers were at the heart of the antislavery
movements that sprung up throughout the Atlantic World in the late
eighteenth century, and which played prominent roles in the abolition
of the slave trade and then slavery throughout the world. What is less
well known is the circuitous route members of the Society of Friends
themselves took to reach a consensus on slavery. In this paper, I will
chart the beginnings of Quaker thought on slavery, from their first
tentative debates in seventeenth-century Barbados to their broad
acceptance of antislavery principles in pre-revolutionary Philadelphia,
to show that, far from being the fruit of plain speaking and quiet
reflection, early Quaker antislavery was in reality the product of
sophisticated rhetoric and vigorous debate. Dr. Caroline Vout, University Lecturer and Fellow of Christ's College‘Antinous: a case-study in exhibiting ancient sculpture’Abstract:
Greco-Roman sculpture can sometimes seem anaemic to the modern
audience; either that or elitist; the preserve of dusty galleries,
hotel foyers and stately homes. How should museums display it so as to
give it meaning? This talk explains how the Henry Moore Institute in
Leeds did it with their 2006 exhibition, 'Antinous: the Face of the
Antique'. It contrasts this with other shows, including the current
Hadrian exhibition at the British Museum in London, to highlight such
key concerns as sculpture as historical evidence, sculpture as
sculpture, and the relevance of classical antiquity. In this way, it
brings History (ancient and eighteenth century), Art-History and
Museology into collision.
26 November
Dr. Ian Patterson, Fellow in English, Queens' College
‘Poetry, Politics, and Celebrity: the conflicted case of Joseph Macleod’Abstract:
Joseph Todd Gordon Macleod (1903-1984) was a significant British poet, novelist, critic, politician, actor, playwright, theatre director, theatre historian and wartime BBC newsreader. He also had a pseudonymous existence for a while as the Scottish poet, Adam Drinan.
Why does nobody know about him any more?
Sponsored by the Queens' College MCRSite photograph by Johannes Ammann
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