Epic Heroes Then and Now

March 28-29, 2008
Whitney Humanities Center
Organized by Corinne Pache (Classics) and Kathryn Slanski (NELC)

 

Program

 

N.B.:  Friday morning session takes place at Rosenfeld Lecture Hall, Grove and Temple Street
(entrance on Temple)

All other sessions take place in the auditorium of the Whitney Humanities Center,
53 Wall Street

 

 

Friday, March 28th

9:00 – 9:30            Coffee and pastrie

9:30-11:15             Welcome & Intro

Session 1 – Heroes Then,
Part 1 – Chair: Eckart Frahm
                                                
Stefan Maul (Heidelberg)
'He who saw the Deep'. The Mesopotamian Hero Gilgamesh

Kathryn Slanski (Yale)
The Poets of Gilgamesh: Then and Now

Anna Bonifazi (University of Turin)
Odysseus in Odyssey xiv: Beggar, Master and Cult Hero

11:15-11:45          Coffee break

11:45-12:30          Panel discussion 

12:30-2:00            Lunch break (WHC 108)

2:00-3:00              Session 2 – Heroes Now, Part 1 – Chair: George Syrimis

Rosanna Warren (Boston University)
Black Light in the Odyssey: Prose Poems and Monotypes

David Ferry (Wellesley)
TBA

3:00-3:30              Panel discussion

3:30-4:00              Coffee break

4:00-5:00              Project O
                              Emily Coates, Joe Roach, Bronwen MacArthur, and Joseph Cermatori

5:00                       Reception  (WHC 108)

6:30                       Dinner for speakers

 

Saturday, March 29th

9:30 – 10:00          Coffee and pastries (WHC 108)

10:00-11:00           Session 3 –  Heroes Now, Part 2 – Chair: Egbert Bakker

Oliver Taplin (Oxford)                                           
The Contrasting Homers of Michael Longley and Seamus Heaney

Emily Greenwood (St Andrews)
On the Margins of Epic, or Epic on the Margins? Heroism and Epic in Contemporary British Fiction (Three Case Studies)

11:00                     Coffee break

Tour of the Babylonian Collection starts at 11:15

12:15-1:30             Lunch break (WHC 108)

1:30-2:30               Session 4 – Heroes Now, Part 3 – Chair: Haun Saussy                 

David Damrosch (Columbia)
From Gilgamesh to Gigamesh: A Hero's Rebirth

Corinne Pache (Yale)
Orpheus’ Last Death: Dreaming the Classics in the Sandman                                                                

2:30-3:00              Coffee break

3:00-4:00              Session 5 – Heroes Now, Part 4 – Chair: Victor Bers

Gregory Nagy (Harvard) 
Traces of Heroic Romance in Archaic Greek Epic and Romantic Heroes in the Short Stories of E.T.A. Hoffmann and in the “Tales of Hoffmann” by Offenbach

Simon Goldhill (Cambridge)
The Art of Reception: Masculine sexuality, Victorian painting and Classical Heroes

4:00-5:00              Panel Discussion – Chair: Alex Beecroft

7:00                      Dinner for speakers