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Subversions of Classical Learning

Subversions of Classical Learning
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This is a past event

International, interdisciplinary conference investigates how Classical learning was changed, manipulated, re-and mis-interpreted, performed, and subverted (deliberately or otherwise) in Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the early modern world.

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Herbert Grierson (1866-1960), Inaugural Chalmers Professor of English Literature at the University of Aberdeen, who was also a Classicist and whose work was profoundly influenced by Classical themes.

This conference is open to all and includes papers by international academics and PhD students. Along with a reception, there will be Scottish traditional music by Nathan Bissette, Alastair Duthie and Helen Lynch, aka Druidhean Feidh, to mark the 150th anniversary of Grierson's birth on Saturday 16 January 2016 on the ground floor of the Sir Duncan Rice Library.

Professor Cairns Craig, University of Aberdeen, editor of Vita Mea: The Autobiography of Sir Herbert J.C. Grierson (Aberdeen University Press, 2014), will open the event by discussing Grierson’s life, his ground-breaking initiatives at the Universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh, his seminal publications in the fields of English and Scottish literature and far beyond, his impact on the great poets of his time, and how this unassuming scholar achieved iconic stature in the academic profession.

Conference Programme

Friday 15 January

The Craig Suite (7th Floor), The Sir Duncan Rice Library

  • 12-1pm Welcome, Registration, & Lunch (provided for all attendees)
  • 1-2pm Keynote Lecture: Cairns Craig, University of Aberdeen - Herbert Grierson and the Making of Modern Poetry

Chair: Aideen O’Leary

  • 2-3pm Virgil Transformed?

Elisabetta Tarantino, University of Oxford -The Colour of Sand: The Imitation and Subversion of Aeneid 6.642-644 from Ancient Rome to Early Modern Europe

David Adkins, University of Toronto - The Relics of Hippolytus: Revisions of Virgil in Faerie Queene 1.v and Peristephanon 11

Chair: Syrithe Pugh

  • 3-3.30pm Coffee
  • 3.30-4.30pm Keynote Lecture: Ralph M. Rosen, University of Pennsylvania - ‘Down with Skool!’: Subverting the Classical within the Classical

Chair: Samantha Newington

Saturday 16 January

The Craig Suite (7th Floor),The Sir Duncan Rice Library

  • 9.30-10am Reinterpretations of the Classics in the North

Lisa Collinson, University of Aberdeen - Þrymskviða and Casina: Latin Comedy in Medieval Scandinavia?

Chair: Aideen O’Leary

  • 10-10.30am Coffee
  • 10.30-11.30am Keynote Session: Horace and Homer in Gaelic

Donald Meek - John Maclean, Rector of Oban High School: Life, Work and Legacy

William Gillies, University of Edinburgh - John Maclean as a Translator of Classical Verse

Chair: Derrick McClure

  • 11.30am-12.30pm Vernacular ‘Translations’ of Classical Literature

Mariamne Briggs, University of Edinburgh - The Metamorphoses of Statius’s Thebaid in Medieval Ireland

Conor Leahy, St John’s College, Cambridge - Writing About the Classics: The Prologues of Gavin Douglas

Chair: Patrick Crotty

  • 12.30-1.30pm Lunch (provided for all attendees)
  • 1.30-3pm Orpheus: The Singer and the Song

Samantha Newington, University of Aberdeen - Classical Orpheus

Syrithe Pugh, University of Aberdeen - Rescuing Orpheus: Spenser’s Revision of Virgil

Helen Lynch, University of Aberdeen - Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady: Milton as Female Orpheus

Chair: Andrew Laird

  • 3-4pm Keynote Lecture: Anna Caughey, Harris Manchester College, Oxford - Latin and French Sources in Henryson's ‘Morall Fabillis’

Chair: Aideen O’Leary

  • 4-4.30pm Coffee
  • 4.30-5.30pm Ancient Philosophy in the Middle Ages

Aideen O’Leary, University of Aberdeen - Persius and Eleventh-century Stoicism

Daniel Watson, Maynooth University - The Origen of the Theses: Metempsychosis and the Conciliation of Patristic Authorities in Medieval Irish Literature

Chair: David Dumville

  • 5.30-6.30pm Reception, with Scottish traditional music by Nathan Bissette, Alastair Duthie and Helen Lynch, aka Druidhean Feidh, to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Herbert Grierson Exhibition Area, Ground Floor, The Sir Duncan Rice Library
  • 7.30pm Conference Dinner, La Lombarda Italian Restaurant, 2 King St, Castlegate, Aberdeen http://www.lalombarda.co.uk

Sunday 17 January

Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies Humanity Manse, 19 College Bounds

  • 10-11am Historical Manipulations of the Classics

Henry Gough-Cooper, Independent Scholar - A Creative Restructuring of Isidore of Seville's Chronicorum epitome in Early Thirteenth-century Wales: Method and Purpose

Ian Olson, Independent Scholar - A Conflict’s Confabulation. Never Mind the Latin – See the Shining Armour!

Chair: Lisa Collinson

  • 11-11.45am David Wheatley, University of Aberdeen - ‘One Loses One’s Classics’: Remnants of Antiquity in Samuel Beckett

Chair: Aideen O’Leary

  • 11.45am-1.30pm Lunch (provided for all attendees)
  • 1.30-2.15pm Andrew Laird, Brown University and Warwick - Aztec Humanists: Appropriations of European Classical Learning by Native Writers in Post-conquest Mexico

Chair: Syrithe Pugh

  • 2.15-3pm Jane Stevenson, University of Aberdeen - Classical Models of Exile and Return

Chair: Aideen O’Leary

  • 3-3.30pm Coffee and Concluding Discussion

Conference Exhibition

All are welcome to view the exhibition which will be held throughout the conference in the Exhibition Area, Ground Floor, The Sir Duncan Rice Library.

Items have been selected from Special Collections to showcase Grierson’s autobiography and family life, and to illustrate his achievement in inaugurating Anglo-Saxon studies at Aberdeen.

Please note that the sessions on Friday and Saturday will be held in the Sir Duncan Rice Library (Craig Suite, 7th Floor). The Sunday sessions will take place at the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies, Humanity Manse, 19 College Bounds.

Contact: Dr Aideen M. O'Leary - Programme Co-ordinator for the MA and MLitt in Celtic & Anglo-Saxon Studies.

Director of the Centre for Celtic & Anglo-Saxon Studies, Celtic & Anglo-Saxon Studies, School of Language & Literature, University of Aberdeen, King's College, Aberdeen AB24 3UB, Scotland U.K.

 

 

 

Hosted by
The Sir Duncan Rice Library, and the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen
Venue
See Conference Programme