OCTOBER 19, 9:30am

In Person conference!

Virtual attendance is now also available,

if desired. Request link when registering.

California State University at Long Beach  Departments of Classics, History and Comparative World Literature

and California Classical Association - South 

are proud to present a

FALL CONFERENCE

IN PERSON

 AT THE CSULB ANATOL CENTER!

OUR OUTSTANDING SPEAKERS

AT PRESENT INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING 

and there will be ample time for 

questions and discussion!

GREG WOOLF

“The Ecology of Roman Urbanism”

One of the distinctive features of Roman imperial society was an increase in urbanism, expressed in the size and number of cities. This paper being presented examines this familiar phenomenon as an environmental intervention, one that disrupted relationships between humans, non-human animals and plants. Since the seventeenth century cities have often been represented as un-natural places, where (for good or ill) a human centered environment encroaches on the wilderness. I will try to persuade you that this view, that does not work very well for modern urbanisms, is completely inappropriate for the Roman world, and I will explore both planned and unplanned environmental consequence of Roman cities.

ANDROMACHE KARANIKA

“From Heroes to Saints: Reading Visual and Literary Catalogues”

This paper being presented discusses the listing of female names in early Greek epic literature. It argues that what in a catalogue may be part of a systematic register of names attached to political identity for entire families has an emotional register when it becomes part of a larger structure in epic poetry. When reading such lists from a trauma theory perspective, lists appear in moments of crisis and become a mechanism for the poet to present narratives that navigate crisis management (e.g., Il. 18.39–49; Hom. Hym. Dem. 406–33). Lists have their visual counterparts when seeing figures places next to each other as in parade iconographically (from ancient depictions of the Nekyia to later byzantine hagiography). Taking this a step further, this paper explores with a comparative and anthropological angle how and why such enumerations turn into a powerful ritual poetics device arguing for the creation of sacred mental spaces.

KELLY NGUYEN

“Digitizing Ancient and Modern Refugees: 

Classics and Community Engaged Scholarship in the Classroom”  

This talk discusses a new course I am teaching at UCLA that leverages digital humanities tools to explore the concept of “refugees” in ancient and modern contexts, with a focus on the Greco-Roman world and the contemporary Vietnamese diaspora. Students examine the ways that refugees have been discussed, portrayed, and treated, as well as flip the script to explore refugeehood through the perspectives and experiences of refugees themselves. Students have the opportunity to engage with real refugee artifacts from our community partner, the Vietnamese Heritage Museum, located in Westminster, CA, as they work towards digitally preserving a selection of the museum’s collection. For the final project, students are tasked with curating digital exhibits that feature refugee material culture from the contemporary Vietnamese diaspora alongside those from the ancient Greco-Roman world in ways that shed light on contemporary refugee issues. By contributing to a community digital archive and creating rotating virtual exhibits, the course extends educational resources beyond the university and contributes to ongoing public discussions about cultural heritage and refugee/human rights.

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Download a program flier 

with complete speaker information