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Faculty of Classics

 

Craven Seminar 2024 ‘Interface Interpretation: exegesis as encounter in Greco-Roman literature’

Classics Faculty, University of Cambridge, 22-24 May 2024

Organisers: Benedek Kruchió (bk390@cam.ac.uk) and Lea Niccolai (ln294@cam.ac.uk)

 

Playing with the notion of ‘interface’ as the space where two independent other systems meet, the Craven seminar 2024 discusses ancient texts in which different if not incompatible topics are brought together by their examination via the same interpretive lens. The focus is on how ancient hermeneutical practices shaped cultural interactions, fostered theories of value, and organised literary, spiritual, and socio-political priorities accordingly. Papers will explore forms of cross-interpretation of topics ranging from nature and physiology to poetry, law, and history.

Programme: 

Day 1 (22 May) 

5.00 registration and coffee

5.20 – introductory remarks

Panel 1: Beginnings - chaired by Lea Niccolai (Cambridge)

5.30 – Simon Goldhill (University of Cambridge) Basil’s Hexaemeron: phusis and tradition

6.30 Drinks reception (Cast Gallery, Faculty of Classics)

7.45 Dinner (Sala Thong)

Day 2 (23 May) 

8.30 Coffee 

Panel 2: Legacies - chaired by Matthew Ward (Cambridge)

9.00 – Benedek Kruchió (University of Cambridge), The many faces of Musaeus: epic, novel, and allegory in Hero and Leander

10.00 – Emma Dyson (University of Pennsylvania) Eunapius of Sardis and Neoplatonist Historiography 

Break

11.30 – Tim Whitmarsh (University of Cambridge) Literary Criticism as Heresy 

12.30  lunch 

Panel 3: Paradigms - chaired by Daniel Hanigan (Cambridge)

1.30 –Monika Amsler (University of Bern) The Craft as an Interface in Iulius Africanus’ Cesti – weaving, writing, and designing knowledge

2.30 – Ineke Sluiter (Leiden University) Constructing the interface: the philological paradigm

3.30 Break

Panel 4: Authority - chaired by Gábor Betegh (Cambridge)

4.00 – Federico Petrucci (University of Turin) Science, philosophy and authority in Ptolemy

5.00 – Lea Niccolai (University of Cambridge) Philo on animal sounds and god’s silence 

Day 3 (24 May) 

8.30 coffee

Panel 5: Ordering - chaired by Benedek Kruchió (Cambridge)

9.00 – Peter Struck (University of Pennsylvania) Porphyry on Reason: how an understanding of cultural and racial difference shapes an understanding of cognition 

10.00 – Maren Niehoff (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Roman Law in Jewish Bible exegesis: the case of Flavius Josephus

11.00 break

Panel 6: Collisions - chaired by Giulia Maltagliati (Cambridge)

11.30 – Oliver Parkes (University of Cambridge), ‘Interfaces’ or ‘Collisions’? Forms of Universal History in the Sibylline Oracles

12.30 – roundtable discussion

1.30 lunch

 

 

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