Classics & Classical Studies CLAS

Classical Studies, Literary Studies, and Philosophy Departments - Commencement 2022 Remarks and Awards

Remarks & awards for Classics & Classical Studies, Literary Studies, and Philosophy seniors and their families at 5:15 p.m. in the Robison Concert Hall, during the joint reception ongoing from 4:30 - 6:00 p.m. in the upper lobby of the Mahaney Arts Center.

Mahaney Arts Center, Olin C. Robison Concert Hall

Sappho's Reception in Imperial Greek Literature

Classics lecture by Ewen Bowie, Oxford University

Sappho was the only woman poet to attain canonical status in the ancient Greek world. The talk will explore how, at the same time as papyri document many readers of her poems in Greco-Roman Egypt in the first 3 centuries AD, Greek writers of different sorts - critics, philosophers, sophists and novelists - displayed their appreciation and knowledge of her poetry and sometimes reworked it to create their new, Sappho-scented prose and poetry.

Twilight 201

Nero's Fire: Fake News or Dirty Truth?

Virginia Closs, University of Massachusetts Amherst

The poetry-and-performance obsessed Nero of legend can credibly be imagined as reaching for his lyre (or cithara) to align his burning city more closely with Troy, her mythic predecessor. Yet by the same token Romans, accustomed to drawing these same parallels, can easily be believed to have used them to construct both the accusation of Nero’s alleged arson, and the rumor of this performance during the fire.

Franklin Environmental Center, The Orchard-Hillcrest 103

Open to the Public