Unclassical Traditions II: Alternatives to the Classical Past in Late Antiquity

A two-day conference at the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge

16th/ 17th April, 2009

Thursday 16th April

9:30 a.m.Registration

9:50 a.m.         Session 1

Claudia Rapp, University of California, Los Angeles

Teachers and Students, Fathers and Brothers: Monasticism and the Classroom

David Gwynn, Royal Holloway, London

Athanasius of Alexandria in Oriental Tradition

11:20 a.m.        Coffee/Tea

11:40 a.m.        Session 2

Richard Flower, University of Cambridge

Nobody Does It Better: Epiphanius of Salamis and Heresiological Expertise

Sergio Knipe, University of Cambridge

Sacrifice and Self-Transformation in the Alchemical Writings of Zosimus

1:00 p.m.         Lunch

2:00 p.m.Session 3

Catherine Ware, National University of Ireland, Maynooth

Proserpina and the Martyrs: Christian Themes in Claudian’s De Raptu Proserpinae

Fotini Hadjittofi, University of Cambridge

Nonnos’ Dionysiaca: An Unclassical Greek Epic?

3:20 p.m.        Tea/Coffee

3:50 p.m.        Session 4

Tom Kitchen, University of Cambridge

Italia and Graecia:  West versus East in the Rhetoric of Ostrogothic Italy

Andy Merrills, University of Leicester

How to be a Vandal (without even trying)

7:00 p.m.Conference Dinner at Clare College


Friday 17th April

10:15 a.m.        Session 5

Michael Williams, National University of Ireland, Maynooth

Who Writes to the Patriarch? New Problems of Protocol in Augustine’s Africa

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, King’s College, London

A Departure from damnatio memoriae: the Place of the Usurper Maximus in Pacatus’ Panegyric of Theodosius

Julia Hillner, University of Sheffield

Punishment as Reform in (late) Roman Law

12:30 p.m.       Lunch

1:30 p.m.         Session 6

Claire Sotinel, Université François Rabelais, Tours

Mending the Past: The Construction of Papacy in the Roman Liber Pontificalis (5th and 6th centuries)

John Curran, Queen’s University, Belfast

The Jewish Patriarchate: A State Within a State?

2:50 p.m.        Conclusions and Closing Words

3:20 p.m.        Tea/Coffee

Registration and all papers will be held in Room 1.04.