Constructing 'Literacy' Among the Greeks and Romans

A Semple Symposium
Department of Classics
University of Cincinnati
April 28-29, 2006

All lectures are free and open to the public. You must preregister by April 21 in order to attend the keynote event at the Taft Museum on Friday. We encourage all to preregister, regardless, if you will be attending more than one lecture.

All Friday sessions will be hosted in Tangemann Center, Room 400B. On Friday evening, participants and registered guests are invited to a reception and banquet at the Taft Museum. All Saturday sessions will be held in Swift Hall, Room 800.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Friday April 28 Tangemann 400B

8:30-9:00            Coffee and pastries

First morning panel
9:00   Rosalind Thomas (Oxford University), "Writing and Reading, Public and Private: Literacy, power, and the development of a 'literate' culture in Greece"
9:45   Greg Woolf (University of St. Andrews), "The Merchant's Mind"

10:30-11:00   Coffee break

Second morning panel
11:00   Simon Goldhill (University of Cambridge), "Literacy, orality and anecdote as cultural artefact"
11:45   Thomas Habinek (University of Southern California), "Situating literacy at Rome"

12:30-2:00   Lunch break

Afternoon panel
2:00   Barbara Burrell (University of Cincinnati), "Reading, Hearing, and Looking at Ephesos"
2:45   Joseph Farrell (University of Pennsylvania), "The Impermanent Text"

Break

Banquet & Keynote Address
5:30-7:00   Taft Museum, cocktails and private museum visit
7:00   Taft Museum, banquet
Keynote address: David R. Olson (University of Toronto), "Why Literacy Matters – to mind and society"

Saturday April 29   Swift Hall 800

8:30-9:00   Coffee and pastries

First morning panel
9:00   Peter van Minnen (University of Cincinnati), "Becoming a Reader in Graeco-Roman Egypt"
9:45   George Houston (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), "Papyrological Evidence for Libraries and Book Collections in the Roman Empire"

10:30-11:00   Coffee break

Second morning panel
11:00   William A. Johnson (University of Cincinnati), "Constructing Elite Reading Communities in the High Empire"
11:45   Peter White (University of Chicago), "Bookshops in the Literary Culture of Rome"

12:30-2:00   Lunch break

Afternoon panel
2:00    Kristina Milnor (Barnard College, Columbia University), "Literary Literacy in Roman Pompeii: the Case of Virgil's Aeneid"

Home
Registration
Program
Speakers
Directions
Hotel