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Issue 5, August 2010

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  PG Supervisors'    Workshop
  Teaching Classical Reception

A series of eight workshops organised in collaboration with the Classical Studies Reception Network (Bristol, Durham, Nottingham, Open University, Oxford and Reading ). The aim of these workshops is to develop systematic research training for graduate students undertaking research in reception studies. Workshops are open to graduate students, from any institution, and all are welcome. Those from departments other than Classics/Ancient History are particularly invited to join.

Attendance at the workshops is free but numbers will be limited and prior registration is ESSENTIAL.

Programme : Most workshops will run from 10:30 to 16:00 at the Institute of Classical Studies , Senate House, Malet Street , London , WC1E 7HU .

Introduction and Overview and including input from recent successful PhD candidates.
Working with primary sources, ancient and modern (Prof. Lorna Hardwick, Dr Felix Budelmann, Dr Anastasia Bakogianni , Dr. Alison Burke)
Professor Lorna Hardwick will introduce the aims of the series and begin discussion of its working methods. We will need to consider the interface between research approaches conventionally used in Classics and those developed in other disciplines and especially to think about ways in which classical reception studies can claim to be distinctive, what research skills it requires and how these can be developed (including encouragement of dialogue between classicists and non-classicists). Workshop members will be asked to identify key issues for their own work and to contribute to setting the agenda for the series.
Dr Felix Budelmann: will talk about working with primary sources. He will use a Greek tragedy, and he will focus on two things: first how to deal with the ancient text, especially if students do not have ancient Greek (translations, introductions and commentaries), and secondly about 20th-century versions and performances of the play and ways in which they are and are not primary sources.

Theory and Methods (Dr. Miriam Leonard and Dr Pantelis Michelakis)
The workshop will have two focuses. The morning session will be structured around various examples of reception (textual critical editions, translations, etc.) and will examine their methodological underpinnings. In the afternoon we will look more closely at different theoretical models (feminism, Marxism, post-colonialism, psychoanalysis) and how they inform our understanding of the many strands of reception studies.

History of Ideas (Dr Ian Macgregor Morris and Professor Stephen Hodkinson )
An introduction to how the History of Ideas and ideologies in the modern world has interacted and drawn upon ancient models and ideas. The day will be divided into two sessions. One will focus on the evolution of concepts of democracy from the early modern period to the present day. The other session will draw together a range of sources (including literature, the visual arts and the account of travelers) to illustrate the complex interaction between different aspects of art, architecture, politics and scholarship which draw on the classical world, yet form central elements of modern culture.

Working with Photographic Images (Dr Rembrandt Duits at the Warburg Institute 10:30 - 13:00 )
This class will introduce the resources the Warburg Institute has to offer for the study of the impact of classical antiquity on the visual arts in later periods. It will involve a presentation on the database of the Census of Antique Works of Art Known in the Renaissance and a tour of the Warburg Institute Photographic Collection , a collection of some 400,000 photographs of works of art organised by subject matter. The combination of these resources makes it possible to track the re-use of motives from antique art through various phases of art history.

Working with translations and language texts (Professor Stephen Harrison, Dr Felix Budelmann, Eleftheria Ioannidou)
Acquiring and brushing up Greek and Latin (Dr James Robson)
Professor Stephen Harrison: 'Case Studies : 20C Translations and Versions of Roman Poets'
This session will look at how late-twentieth-century poets have shown revived interest in rendering Latin poets in various ways, from multiple-hand translations of complete works of Horace and Ovid to adapted versions of Catullus and Vergil. The session will focus on translation as a mode of reception, recreation and commentary rather than as a literal rendition of a text. Dr Felix Budelmann: 'Anacreontic translations' . This session uses the Anacreontea and translations of the Anacreontea from various centuries to explore some general issues in classical reception studies, such as: the challenges of studying reception across different periods and places; reception and history of scholarship; the problems involved in constructing reception history around versions of ancient source texts.
Dr James Robson Acquiring and brushing up Greek and Latin
I am going to talk about how to go about learning or extending knowledge of classical languages through adult education or university courses, self study and internet resources and also intend to talk briefly about the kind of linguistic work which can be done even with a relatively rudimentary knowledge of classical languages.

Archive Research (Dr Chris Stray, Dr. Alison Burke)
What are archives, and why do they exist? How do they differ from other 'primary sources'? What can we learn from them that we can't find out elsewhere? The different kinds of archives available for the study of classical reception will be surveyed, and examples discussed. The advantages and disadvantages of archival listings and sites will be compared, and the major listings of archives explored.