Departmental Lecture Series

September 17th, 2024

Dr. Giovanni Mandolino
Univeristy of Padua
The Philosophical Background of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and its Eastern Aftermath

September 22 & September 23, 2024 

Jewish Thought in the Face of Disasters: A Symposium
Sunday, Sept. 22, 3:00 - 6:30 pm
Monday, Sept. 23, 9:30 AM - 1:00 pm

BOARD ROOM, KING鈥橲 COLLEGE Arts and Administration Building, 2nd floor
6350 Coburg Road

Day 1: Sunday, Sept. 22, 3:00 - 6:30 pm
Opening Remarks: Daniel Brandes, University of King's College

Martin Kavka
Chair, Department of Religion, Florida State University
鈥淪pinoza's Christian Enemies: On Jewish-Christian Relations A Century after Schmitt"

Paula Schwebel
Department of Philosophy, Toronto Metropolitan University
"Melancholy Sovereignty and the Politics of Sin"

Meirav Jones
Department of Religious Studies, McMaster University
鈥淭he Catastrophe of Human Sovereignty and the Subversive Potential of Wrestling with God鈥�

Day 2: Monday, Sept. 23, 9:30 AM - 1:00 pm

Mara Benjamin
Irene Kaplan Leiwant Professor of Jewish Studies, Mt. Holyoke College
"The World-to-Come and Ecological Collapse"

Dustin Atlas
Director of Jewish Studies, Queen鈥檚 University
"Living Disaster: No Hope or Fear"

The symposium is presented by King鈥檚 College and the 鲍鱼tv University Department of Classics, Program in Religious Studies, and Department of Philosophy

For pre-circulated papers to be discussed at the workshop, please email Eva Mroczek, Department of Classics, Simon and Riva Spatz Chair in Jewish Studies, at eva.mroczek@dal.ca

October 1st, 2024

Dr. Noreen Humble
Department of Classics and Religion, University of Calgary
The Philosopher, The Tyrant, The Spin Doctor, the Spin Dictator

October 15th, 2024

Dr. Peggy Shannon
President, NSCAD University
Do the Ancient Greek Archetypes Offer 21st Century Insight for Women?

January 20th, 2025

Dr. Chelsea Gardner
Department of Classics, Acadia University
Hercules, Hades, and Helots: Tainaron in Classical Antiquity

January 28th, 2025

Dr. Stephen Russell
Department of Greek & Roman Studies, McMaster University
Classicists in medical terminology research: Seriously? Seriously

February 11th, 2025  

Dr. Seth Sanders
Department of Classics, 鲍鱼tv University
Tishkach: The Clash Between History and Memory in Ancient Judaism

February 25th, 2025 - 2:30 pm

Steve Skafte
The Dead Die Twice: Funerary Monuments and Human Memory In Rural Nova Scotia

March 4th, 2025

Dr. Luke Roman
Department of Classics, Memorial University
Celebrity Authors in Rome

September 26th, 2023

Dr. Frances Pownall
University of Alberta
Pulp Fiction? Folly and Violence in Hellenistic Athens

October 10th, 2023

Dr. Natalie Swain
Acadia University
The Conjunction of Ancient Knowledge in Video Game Play: "An Embodied Textuality"

October 24th, 2023

Dr. Sara Ahbel-Rappe
University of Michigan
Four Platonists and a Charioteer

November 21st, 2023

Dr. Gerard Nadaff
York University, Professor Emeritus
鈥淒iscovering 蠁蠉蟽喂蟼: 鈥�"

January 15th, 2024

Dr. Bruce Gordon
Yale Divinity School
Semper Reformanda: Robert Crouse and the Receptions of Augustine in the Reformation

January 23rd, 2024

Bryan Heystee
Memorial University of Newoundland
Simone Weil on Plato's Cave

February 27th, 2024  

Dr. Gerjan Altenburg  St. Francis Xavier University
Classical Sources and Contemporary Court Cases: Voyeurism in the M奴lasarv膩stiv膩da-vinaya and Pleasant Bay, Nova Scotia

March 5th, 2024 

Dr. Carolyn MacDonald
University of New Brunswick
Looking with the Beloved: Oppositional Views of Visual Fantasy in Tibullus

March 19th, 2024  

Dr. Luke Togni
St. Bonaventure University
The Birth of the Ideas: Bonaventure on the externalization, and cruciformity of divine ideas

April 2nd, 2024  

Ms. Cristalle Watson
The University of British Columbia
Scriptural Paraphrase and Vergilian Exegesis in Proba's Cento Vergilianus de laudibus Christi

September 13th, 2022

Dr. Roger Wilson

University of British Columbia

Living In Luxury: The Late Roman Villa at Caddeddi on the Tellaro, near Nota, Sicily

October 18th, 2022

Dr. Robin Baker

Winchester University

Taking Old Things and New, from the Storehouse: Matthew's Gospel and Mesopotamian Esoteric Tradition

November 1st, 2022

Dr. Spencer Pope

McMaster University

Owls under the Roof: the Production of Athenian Coinage and the Public Treasury

January 26th, 2023

Dr. Seth Sanders

UC Davis

Literary Creativity across the Mediterranean

February 7th, 2023

Dr. Zena Hitz

St. John's College

Lost In Thought & Learning for Learning's Sake

March 14th, 2023

Ms. Sophie Jacome
Playwright and Independent Scholar in Theatre and Classics

The New Telling of Tales: Adapting Classical Stories for the Modern Stage

Tuesday, October 12th, 2021 at 7:00pm

Dr. Mike MacKinnon

University of Winnipeg

Pet Animals in Roman Antiquity: Reconstructions from Archaeological Evidence

Tuesday, October 26th 2021  

Dr. Nicholas Thorne

BA (Vind), MA (鲍鱼tv), PhD (Pittsburgh)

Plato & Thucydides

March 1st, 2022   

Dr. Sveva Savelli

Department of Modern Languages and Classics, St. Mary's University

Colonial Encounters and power dynamics in the territory of the Oenotrians: Insights from the Metaponto Archaeological Project

March 8th, 2022

Dr. Neil Robertson

University of King's College

Leo Strauss and Plato's Ideas

March 21st, 2022    

Dr. Jack Mitchell

鲍鱼tv Univeristy

The Odyssey of Star Wars: An Epic Poem

Wednesday, October 21st, 2020      

Dr. Sarah Murray

University of Toronto

Early Iron Age Origins of Ritual Practice and Athletic Nudity at Olympia and Delphi

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020 

Dr. Katya Vogt

Columbia University

Pyrrhonian Indeterminacy

Tuesday, November 24th, 2020 

Dr. Victoria Austen-Perry

University of Winnipeg

Distinguit et Miscet: Framing Roman Garden Spaces in the Villas of the Elite

Tuesday, January 19th, 2021   

Dr. Rodica Firanescu

鲍鱼tv University

Speech-Acts Theory in Arabic Grammarians

Wednesday, February 24th, 2021    

Dr. Andr茅 Laks

Universidad Panamericana in Mexico City

Parmenides and the Anxiety of Platonism: On the Articulation of His Poem

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2021      

Dr. Dermot Moran

Boston College, Joseph Chair in Catholic Philosophy

God as "Non-Other" (Nil Aliud) in Eriugena and Cusanus 

Tuesday, September 17th, 2019

Dr. Deborah Roberts

Haverford College

Translation Issues in Aeschylean Poetry

Tuesday, September 24th, 2019

Dr. Ben Akrigg, CAC Visiting Speaker

University of Toronto

Wealth and Inequality in Ancient Economies

Tuesday, October 8th, 2019

Dr. Paul Shore

University of Regina

Early Jesuit Translation of the Qu'ran

Tuesday, November 5th, 2019

Dr. Elizabeth Asmis

University of Chicago

Epicurean Justice With a Focus on Lucretius

Tuesday, January 21st, 2020

Dr. Warren Huard

University of Winnipeg

Herakles the God

Tuesday, February 11th, 2020

Dr. Ronald Haflidson 

St. John's College

Augustine's Confessions, Book 10

Tuesday, February 25th, 2020

Dr. Melissa Funke

University of Winnipeg

Post-Classical Receptions of Immigrant Sex Workers in Classical Athens

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Dr. Kelly Olsen
University of Western Ontario

"Noblewomen and Leisure in Roman Antiquity"

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Dr. Geoffrey Moseley
Sewanee University of the South

"Reception of Plato and Aristotle in the Muslim World"

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Dr. David Konstan
New York University

"The Invention of Sin"

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Dr. Page duBois
University of California - San Diego

"Parrhesia and Polytheism"

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Dr. Giulia Bonasio
鲍鱼tv University

"Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics"

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Dr. Chris Gibson

"Plato and Gadamer's Magical Mystery Tour: The Relevance of Plato's Dialogues to 20th Century Philosophical Heremeneutics"

Tuesday, February 26th, 2019

Dr. Larissa Atkison
鲍鱼tv University

"To Nobly Lie; Deception and Complicity in 'Philoctetes'"

Tuesday, February 26th, 2019

Dr. Rodney Ritzsimons

Trent University

"Emergent polis in Crete"

Tuesday, March 12th, 2019

Dr. Therese Cory

University of Notre Dame

Monday, September 25th, 2017

Dr. Lisa Hughes
Classical Association of Canada Lecture Tour
University of Calgary

"The Art of Performance in Pompeii"

Tuesday, October 3rd, 2017

Ms. Emma Curran
Princeton University

Tuesday, November 14th, 2017

Dr. Evan King

"Not According to Us: Berthold of Moosburg and the Retrieval of Platonic Theology in the 14th Century"

Tuesday, February 13th, 2018

Dr. Emily Varto
鲍鱼tv University

"Greeks, Romans, and the 'Science of Man': Building a History of the Classics and Early Anthropology"

Tuesday, March 6th, 2018

Dr. Myles McCallum
St. Mary's University

"A River Runs through It: The Tiver's influence on the commercial organization of Roman central Italy"

Tuesday, March 27th, 2018

Dr. Istv谩n Perczel
Central European University

"The Seventh Letter to Polycarp and links to Pseudo-Dionysius, Proclus, and a debate concerning the eternity of the world"

Monday, January 23, 2017

Dr. Matthew Wood

Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

"Moving Images:  An Interpretation of Rhetoric 411b 2-4"

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Dr. Mich猫le Anik Stanbury

McCain Postdoctoral Fellow
Mount Allison University

"The Metaphysical Origin of the Principles of Logic in Plotinus鈥� Emanative System"

Dr. Stanbury writes: "Plotinus鈥� theory concerning the role and status of logical principles is a complex one. He does not outright reject the validity of logical principles. Their scope and utility, however, are circumscribed. The limitations of the scope of these principles鈥攑articularly the first among them, the principle of non-contradiction鈥攊s articulated most clearly in relation to the divine Intellect: the Intellect is asserted to be simultaneously one and many absolutely and without qualification.

I argue, first, that this seemingly contradictory statement is not a violation of the PNC, but rather an indication that the Intellect transcends the realm within which the PNC is applicable. To establish this claim, I argue that there are in fact pre-requisites for the PNC鈥檚 applicability which are not present in the mode of existence of the Intellect.

If it is indeed the case that there are Plotinian metaphysical realms which transcend the logical principles, but others within which they hold sway, then these principles must have a source or origin within Plotinus鈥� emanative system. In the second part of my essay, I attempt to identify the metaphysical origin of the logical principles in the process by which the world soul emanates from the divine Intellect, focusing particularly on the implications of Ennead III.7: On Eternity and Time."

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Dr. Florence Yoon

University of British Columbia

"Stop calling them "messengers": distinguishing character identity and function in Greek Tragedy"

The term "messenger" is a familiar one in the discussion of Greek tragedy, but its imprecision has contributed to a long-standing category confusion. This paper argues for a more restricted use by examining the related categories of tragic heralds and messengers, and insisting upon distinction between two commonly confused aspects of character: in-world identity and extradramatic function.