The Corbett Lecture
The Corbett Lecture is an annual lecture by a distinguished scholar on a theme connected with ancient Greece. The list of past Corbett Lectures can be found HERE.
Did you know that we also have a collection of audio recordings of some of the previous Corbett lectures? These can be found HERE.
The Corbett lectures are open to all members of the University and others who are interested, so please do feel free to come along.
The 2023 Corbett Lecture
Thursday 2 November at 5pm in room G.19, Faculty of Classics
"Nil novi? Remarks on the concepts ‘new’, ‘young’ and ‘old’ in antiquity"
Professor Daniel Kölligan (University of Würzburg)
Daniel Kölligan, Professor of Comparative Philology at the University of Würzburg, will discuss the linguistic encoding of the concepts ‘young’, ‘new’ and ‘old’, especially in relation to human old age in Greek and Roman antiquity, explore the ambiguous attitudes towards to it and offer insights into early conceptualizations of ageing through an examination of Greek and comparative linguistic data.
Recent Corbett lectures
Professor Alex Purves, UCLA, gave the 2022 Corbett lecture.
The J.H. Gray Lectures
The Reverend Joseph Henry Gray, one-time Fellow and Vice-President of Queens', honorary canon of Peterborough, decided to endow a lectureship in Classics and the first set of Grays were given in 1928.
The 2024 J.H. Gray Lectures
PLEASE NOTE: The lectures will now take place in the Little Hall, Sidgwick Site.
Previous J.H. Gray Lectures
Plato’s Philebus is an oddity: Despite its audience-friendly project—a contest between pleasure and intelligence regarding their contribution to human happiness—it has never been among the dialogues most widely read, nor even popular, not even amongst Plato’s biggest fans. In the past thirty or so years, considerable work has been done to make the dialogue safe for philosophy, inside and outside of classical studies. In taking up the enigma of this work, these lectures will also consider the dialogue’s relation to the classical context more broadly and some aspects of its reception.
2022 Programme
In 2022, the J. H. Gray Lectures were delivered by Prof. Carlos Norena (UC Berkeley).
17th May
A recording of the lecture on Geographies of Power is available here.
18th May
Seminar: The Calibration of Interests (2pm G.21)
19th May
A recording of the lecture on Acculturation and Authority is available here.
The lectures and seminars will be held in person but a livestream will be available. If you are interested in the livestream, please register your interest at events@classics.cam.ac.uk. A link will be sent nearer to the time to those that have registered.
2021 Programme
In 2021 the J. H. Gray Lectures were delivered by Prof. Philomena Probert (Wolfson College, Oxford). Recordings of livestreams can be found below.
Video of lecture given on Tuesday 9th March, 5pm:
Did the ancient Greeks do historical Linguistics?
A bibliography is available here.
Wednesday 10th March, 2pm:
κακῶς λέγεις: how did Greek grammarians argue?
The seminar handout is available here
Video of lecture given on Thursday 11th March, 5pm:
Did the Romans do historical linguistics?
The bibliography for the second lecture is available here.