From brown.1572@osu.edu Fri Aug 2 08:30:04 2002 Received: from mailscan4.cac.washington.edu (mailscan4.cac.washington.edu [140.142.33.15]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with SMTP id g72FU3eY074066 for ; Fri, 2 Aug 2002 08:30:03 -0700 Received: FROM mxu2.u.washington.edu BY mailscan4.cac.washington.edu ; Fri Aug 02 08:30:03 2002 -0700 Received: from mail-mta5.service.ohio-state.edu (mail-mta5.service.ohio-state.edu [128.146.216.45]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.06) with ESMTP id g72FU3JX021090 for ; Fri, 2 Aug 2002 08:30:03 -0700 Received: from osu.edu (alpha.cohums.ohio-state.edu [164.107.4.2]) by mail-mta5.service.ohio-state.edu (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.1 HotFix 0.6 (built Apr 26 2002)) with ESMTP id <0H0800EA5322GB@mail-mta5.service.ohio-state.edu> for classics@u.washington.edu; Fri, 02 Aug 2002 11:30:02 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2002 11:29:46 -0400 From: pbrown Subject: Call for Papers: Graduate Student Colloquium, OSU To: classics@u.washington.edu Reply-to: brown.1572@osu.edu Message-id: <3D4AA56A.F9F36042@osu.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 (Macintosh; U; PPC) Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type=54455854; x-mac-creator=4D4F5353 Content-transfer-encoding: 8BIT X-Accept-Language: en Writing Religion in the Ancient World A Graduate Student Colloquium The Ohio State University Department of Greek and Latin March 22, 2003 CALL FOR PAPERS The concept of the "religious" as a sphere separate from other spheres of human endeavor is a distinctly modern notion. To ask the questions "what was Greek religion like?" or "how did the Romans conceive of their religion?" is to ask questions the Greeks and Romans themselves would have been unlikely to be able to answer, or even ask. Nevertheless, all the elements which we today collect under the umbrella of religion —prayer, sacrifice, divinity, ritual, festival, etc.— were in some form present to, and important for, the Greeks and Romans. However, these elements were intimately tied up in all aspects of daily life: politics, business, sex, war, and so also, literature. If the ancients did pray, sacrifice, recognize divinities, practice rituals and attend festivals, did these activities form some kind of salient whole in the Greek and Roman world? Although we may recognize a distinction between the two today, how did the ancients integrate the practices we label religion and those we label literature? The purpose of this colloquium will be to offer graduate students of both Greco-Roman religion and literature an opportunity to explore that vast, hazy expanse of their shared endeavors. Particularly we hope to look at how "religious" practices feature and function in the genres of Greco-Roman literature and at the same time how they may have shaped those very genres. Thus students are encouraged to submit papers dealing with any feature of the religion-literature interface within the Greco-Roman world, especially those exploring the theoretical issues involved in how the two spheres of practice inform and define one another. Suggested topic areas include, but are not limited to: Literary (re)presentations of sacrifice, divination, prayer, festival; the social, religious or aesthetic nature of divine poetic inspiration; The social or the political in the religious performances of literature; The religious function of theater; The literary function of religious topoi; and any other topic dealing with the religion-literature interface. Interested graduate students should submit anonymous abstracts of 600 words or less (plus bibliography). Submissions should be accompanied by a cover letter including the student's name, address, e-mail address and the title of their paper to: Graduate Student Colloquium Department of Greek and Latin 414 University Hall 230 North Oval Mall Columbus, OH 43210 Department web-site: http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu Abstracts should be received no later than November 15th 2002 Contact/questions: grad_colloquium@omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu .