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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260730T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260730T180000
DTSTAMP:20260716T191933Z
CREATED:20260716T191933Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260716T191933Z
UID:8883-1785430800-1785434400@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Odyssey Book Club | July 30\, 5-6 PM
DESCRIPTION:Join us for an online disscusion of Nolan’s film and Homer’s epic.  All are welcome but an advance RSVP is required. \nRSVP by July 27th here.
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/odyssey-book-club-july-30-5-6-pm/
LOCATION:Online
CATEGORIES:Department Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/ED80C054-9459-4455-9EE3-5935E0540DC5.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260601T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260605T160000
DTSTAMP:20260514T214252Z
CREATED:20260514T213813Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260514T214252Z
UID:8791-1780304400-1780675200@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:UCLA Classics and Art History Annual Book Giveaway
DESCRIPTION:Please gather your friends & join us at the UCLA Art History & Classics Annual Book Giveaway which will take place in the hallways of Dodd Hall 2nd floor from 9am-4pm on Mon-Fri\, June 1-5. These books have been generously donated by our Faculty and there are A LOT of fantastic finds. You will NOT want to miss this!! \n  \n 
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/ucla-classics-and-art-history-annual-book-giveaway/
LOCATION:Dodd Hall\, Second Floor
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Image-5-14-26-at-2.20-PM.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260522T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260522T173000
DTSTAMP:20260515T200035Z
CREATED:20260515T200035Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260515T200035Z
UID:8799-1779465600-1779471000@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Sasha-Mae Eccleston | "Book Discussion - Epic Events: Classics and the Politics of Time in the United States Since 9/11"
DESCRIPTION:Please join us on Friday\, May 22\, 2026 for a talk by Sasha-Mae Eccleston entitled “Book Discussion – Epic Events: Classics and the Politics of Time in the United States Since 9/11” \nAll are welcome!
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/sasha-mae-eccleston-book-discussion-epic-events-classics-and-the-politics-of-time-in-the-united-states-since-9-11/
LOCATION:Dodd 248
CATEGORIES:Department Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Sasha-May-Eccleston-flyer.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260501T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260501T183000
DTSTAMP:20260401T212550Z
CREATED:20260401T212458Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260401T212550Z
UID:8752-1777651200-1777660200@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Jennifer Trimble | "Monuments and meanings: ancient Roman damnatio memoriae and statue destructions today"
DESCRIPTION:Annual UCLA Joan Palevsky Lecture\nAssociate Professor of Classics\, Standford University\n“Monuments and meanings: ancient Roman damnatio memoriae and statue destructions today”
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/jennifer-trimble-monuments-and-meanings-ancient-roman-damnatio-memoriae-and-statue-destructions-today/
LOCATION:UCLA Faculty Club\, Morrison Room\, 480 Charles E Young Dr E\, Los Angeles\, CA\, 90095\, United States
CATEGORIES:Palevsky Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/2026-Palevsky-Jennifer-Trimble.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260423T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260423T183000
DTSTAMP:20260401T211955Z
CREATED:20260401T211900Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260401T211955Z
UID:8748-1776963600-1776969000@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Emily Greenwood | “Audre Lorde and Plato’s Menexenus: The Master’s House and the House of Difference”
DESCRIPTION:The UCLA Department of Classics is pleased to present a lecture by Professor Emily Greenwood\, Harvard University entitled “Audre Lorde and Plato’s Menexenus: The Master’s House and the House of Difference”
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/emily-greenwood-audre-lorde-and-platos-menexenus-the-masters-house-and-the-house-of-difference/
LOCATION:Dodd 247
CATEGORIES:Department Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Emily-Greenwood-lecture.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260226T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260226T193000
DTSTAMP:20260202T220729Z
CREATED:20260202T220729Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260202T220729Z
UID:8711-1772121600-1772134200@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Professor Sarah P. Morris' lecture "Out of Anatolia: Hittites\, Homer and the Trojan War"
DESCRIPTION:Please join us for a lecture followed by a reception featuring Professor Sarah Morris who will present her talk “Out of Anatolia: Hittites\, Homer and the Trojan War” \nThis lecture will be held at the Faculty Club’s Morrison Room on Thursday\, Feb. 26th at 4 PM.  All are welcome! \n 
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/professor-sarah-p-morris-lecture-out-of-anatolia-hittites-homer-and-the-trojan-war/
LOCATION:UCLA Faculty Club\, Morrison Room\, 480 Charles E Young Dr E\, Los Angeles\, CA\, 90095\, United States
CATEGORIES:Department Lecture
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251115T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251115T170000
DTSTAMP:20250924T160857Z
CREATED:20250924T160857Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250924T160857Z
UID:8590-1763215200-1763226000@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Between the Minoans and the Mycenaeans
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/between-the-minoans-and-the-mycenaeans/
LOCATION:Royce Hall 314\, 10745 Dickson Plaza\, Los Angeles\, CA\, 90095\, United States
CATEGORIES:Co-sponsored event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/BBA2A69E-E7EB-4E3C-ADEB-116D8F962A11.jpeg
ORGANIZER;CN="UCLA SNF Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture":MAILTO:hellenic@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251021T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251021T183000
DTSTAMP:20251013T151603Z
CREATED:20251013T151603Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251013T151603Z
UID:8644-1761066000-1761071400@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:A Conversation with Author and Professor\, Catherine Conybeare
DESCRIPTION:Please join us for a Book Event featuring author and professor Catherine Conybeare.  Professor Michele Salzman (UC Riverside) will facilitate a conversation with the author regarding her new book. \nAll are welcome! \n 
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/a-conversation-with-author-and-professor-catherine-conybeare/
LOCATION:Dodd 247
CATEGORIES:Co-sponsored event
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251003T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251003T173000
DTSTAMP:20250912T214039Z
CREATED:20250912T214039Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250912T214039Z
UID:8574-1759507200-1759512600@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:The Department of Classics and The Indo-European Studies Program Welcome Reception
DESCRIPTION:The Department of Classics and the Program in Indo-European Studies will host their joint Welcome Reception on Friday\, October 3\, 2025. \nAll are welcome!
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/the-department-of-classics-and-the-indo-european-studies-program-welcome-reception/
LOCATION:Dodd 275
CATEGORIES:Co-sponsored event
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250605T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250605T190000
DTSTAMP:20250424T202637Z
CREATED:20250422T161215Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250424T202637Z
UID:8424-1749142800-1749150000@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Graduate Capstone Paper Symposium
DESCRIPTION:Please join us for the Department of Classics Graduate Capstone Paper Symposium on Thursday\, June 5 at 5pm in Dodd 248.
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/graduate-capstone-paper-symposium/
LOCATION:Dodd 248
CATEGORIES:Graduate Student Papers
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Classics-Capstone-Paper-2025.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250529T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250529T190000
DTSTAMP:20250424T202534Z
CREATED:20250422T160535Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250424T202534Z
UID:8421-1748538000-1748545200@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Cristina Pérez Díaz to present "From the Founding of the Country" on May 29
DESCRIPTION:The UCLA Departments of Classics\, English\, Spanish & Portuguese\, Chicano/a & Central American Studies\, as well as the Center for the Study of Women proudly present a reading of “From the Founding of the Country” by classicist\, writer\, and translator Cristina Pérez Díaz (University of Puerto Rico) followed by a conversation with UCLA Professor Patrícia Lino (Department of Spanish & Portuguese) on May 29 in Dodd 248 at 5pm.
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/cristina-perez-diaz-to-present-from-the-founding-of-the-country-on-may-29/
LOCATION:Dodd 248
CATEGORIES:Co-sponsored event,Department Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/KN-Cristina-Perez-Diaz-Lecture-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250522T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250522T190000
DTSTAMP:20250506T175633Z
CREATED:20250506T164116Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250506T175633Z
UID:8459-1747933200-1747940400@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Rebecca Benefiel to present "The Nature of Ancient Graffiti: Exploring Popular Writing in Pompeii" on May 22
DESCRIPTION:The UCLA Department of Classics and Cotsen Institute for Archaeology proudly present a lecture by Professor Rebecca R. Benefiel (Washington and Lee University)\, entitled “The Nature of Ancient Graffiti: Exploring Popular Writing in Pompeii” on Thursday\, May 22 in Fowler A222 at 5pm\, followed by hands-on work to get us thinking about how to do research using graffiti in antiquity.
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/rebecca-benefiel-graffiti-lecture/
LOCATION:Fowler Museum A222
CATEGORIES:Co-sponsored event,Department Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/SB_Rebecca-Benefiel-522.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250424T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250424T190000
DTSTAMP:20250408T003950Z
CREATED:20250324T150142Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250408T003950Z
UID:8390-1745514000-1745521200@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Naoíse Mac Sweeney | "The Birth of the Ancient Greek World: Migration\, Urbanisation\, and the Emergence of Greekness?"
DESCRIPTION:Annual UCLA Joan Palevsky Lecture Professor \nNaoíse Mac Sweeney\, University of Vienna \n“The Birth of the Ancient Greek World: Migration\, Urbanisation\, and the Emergence of Greekness?” \nLecture summary:  By the start of the classical period\, the Greek world stretched from Spain to Cyprus\, and from Libya to the Crimea\, and was comprised of over 1\,000 autonomous polities. In this lecture\, I will consider how this geographically dispersed and politically fragmented Greek world came into being over the course of the 11th to sixth centuries BCE\, focusing in particular on new data from archaeological surveys designed to uncover processes of urbanisation and migration at varying scales. This new data suggests divergent pathways to Greekness in different parts of the Greek world\, with the adoption of Greek lifestyles and cultural traits happening at radically different times and in response to different local contexts. If\, as this evidence suggests\, the Greek world was forged in a more piecemeal and uneven manner than previously thought\, does this have implications for what we assume the Greek world fundamentally was? \nAbout the speaker: Naoíse Mac Sweeney\, professor of Greek archaeology at the University of Vienna\, is the author of books including “Community Identity and Archaeology” (2011)\, “Foundation Myths and Politics in Ancient Ionia” (2013)\, “Troy: Myth\, City\, Icon” (2018) and\, most recently\, “The West: A New History of an Old Idea” (2023). \nKindly RSVP at collegeevents@support.ucla.edu.
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/naoise-mac-sweeney-palevsky-lecture/
LOCATION:Fowler Museum
CATEGORIES:Palevsky Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/PalevskyLect2025_NaoiseMacSweeney.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250303T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250303T183000
DTSTAMP:20250225T215254Z
CREATED:20250220T205314Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250225T215254Z
UID:8364-1741021200-1741026600@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Jinyu Liu | "Labeling Ethnicities of Enslaved and Freed Individuals in the Early Roman Empire: Fluidity and Complexity"
DESCRIPTION:Please join us for a talk given by Professor Jinyu Liu (Emory University) entitled “Labeling Ethnicities of Enslaved and Freed Individuals in the Early Roman Empire: Fluidity and Complexity” on Monday\, March 3\, 2025 in Dodd 248\, reception to follow. \nAll are welcome!
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/jinyu-liu-labeling-ethnicities-of-enslaved-and-freed-individuals-in-the-early-roman-empire-fluidity-and-complexity/
LOCATION:Dodd 248
CATEGORIES:Department Lecture
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250127T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250127T183000
DTSTAMP:20250122T224400Z
CREATED:20250122T224400Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250122T224400Z
UID:8340-1737997200-1738002600@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Christopher Moore | "The Plurality of Virtue."
DESCRIPTION:The UCLA Department of Classics is pleased to present a lecture by Professor Christopher Moore\, Pennsylvania State University entitled “The Plurality of Virtue.”
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/christopher-moore-the-plurality-of-virtue/
LOCATION:Dodd 248
CATEGORIES:Department Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/40DE2D13-CA75-4A0E-BAA2-05C73C917418.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241122T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241122T130000
DTSTAMP:20241007T173700Z
CREATED:20241007T173700Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241007T173700Z
UID:8233-1732276800-1732280400@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Jonathan Prag | “Crossreads and I.Sicily: digital and interdisciplinary approaches to the epigraphy of ancient Sicily”
DESCRIPTION:The UCLA Department of Classics presents a talk by Jonathan Prag (Oxford University) on Friday\, November 22 at 12:00 PM. \nThe lecture entitled “Crossreads and I.Sicily: digital and interdisciplinary approaches to the epigraphy of ancient Sicily\,” will be held in Dodd 248. \nDescription:\n“Crossreads and I.Sicily: digital and interdisciplinary approaches to the epigraphy of ancient Sicily”\nThis talk presents the ongoing work of the I.Sicily and Crossreads projects. I.Sicily is a multilingual digital corpus of the inscriptions of ancient Sicily based upon fresh autopsy (sicily.classics.ox.ac.uk); Crossreads is 5-year ERC project developing and applying linguistic\, palaeographic and archaeometric analyses to this corpus (crossreads.web.ox.ac.uk). The ambition of both projects is to make the complex epigraphic heritage of Sicily more accessible and to cast new light upon the cultural history of Sicily through this rich corpus of evidence. The talk will explore some of the methodological challenges and present some of the results achieved so far.
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/jonathan-prag-crossreads-and-i-sicily-digital-and-interdisciplinary-approaches-to-the-epigraphy-of-ancient-sicily/
LOCATION:Dodd 248
CATEGORIES:Department Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Jonathan-Prag-poster.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241028T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241028T173000
DTSTAMP:20241009T223313Z
CREATED:20241009T223313Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241009T223313Z
UID:8246-1730131200-1730136600@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Giuseppe Pezzini | The Veil of the Name: Comedy in the Aeneid
DESCRIPTION:Please join us on Monday\, October 28 at 4pm for Professor Giuseppe Pezzini (Corpus Christi College\, University of Oxford) who will be speaking on “The Veil of the Name: Comedy in the Aeneid\,” in Dodd 248. \nAll are welcome! \nDescription: \nThe lecture will explore an important yet neglected ingredient of Virgil’s recipe in the Aeneid\, namely Roman comedy\, preserved primarily through the works of Plautus and Terence. Readers of Roman comedy cannot help but recognize in Aeneid4 a web of comic motifs and situations that enrich its plot and characters\, stirring and manipulating readers’ (and characters’) expectations. Some of these motifs are not exclusively comic and appear in other genres and texts\, notably tragedy (as long recognized by Virgil scholars)\, yet their comic origin and implications should not be underestimated. After a brief but systematic overview of comic elements in Aeneid 4\, I will focus on ‘liminal’ tragic-comic features\, arguing that this process of genre hybridization evokes comic expectations only to ultimately subvert them.
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/giuseppe-pezzini-the-veil-of-the-name-comedy-in-the-aeneid/
LOCATION:Dodd 248
CATEGORIES:Department Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Giuseppe-Pezzini-flyer.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20241018
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20241020
DTSTAMP:20241011T184731Z
CREATED:20241003T203057Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241011T184731Z
UID:8224-1729209600-1729382399@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Plato and Lyric Poetry Conference Oct. 18-19
DESCRIPTION:Conference Schedule:\n\nFriday October 18th\, 2024:\n9 am. Breakfast\n9.25 am Opening remarks\n\nSession 1\n9.35 am-10.35 am. Glenn Most (University of Chicago): “Pindar’s nomos basileus (Fr. 169 Sn.-M.) in Plato” \nPindar’s Nomos basileus fragment (Fr. 169 Sn.-M.) is one of his most celebrated and controversial texts. Papyrus discoveries have extended our textual knowledge of Pindar’s poem but have not resolved its interpretative difficulties. The most celebrated and controversial ancient discussion of it is provided by Callicles’ citation and interpretation of it in Plato’s Gorgias. But even the text of this quotation is uncertain\, to say nothing of the meaning attributed to it. I will discuss the extant remains of Pindar’s poem and this passage in the Gorgias\, bringing to bear upon these other ancient testimonia\, especially Herodotus 3.38 and Plato’s Laws 4 715a\, in the hope of complicating and perhaps even revising the communis opinio. \n10.45 am-11.45 am. Paper 2. John Tennant (Stanford University): “Speaking lyrically\, speaking proverbially.” \nPlato’s quotation of excerpts from lyric poetry in the dialogues highlights the status of those excerpts as detachable statements\, removed from their original\, textual context. This invites the question\, what makes a statement detachable? What quality allows for a text’s quotability as a “stand-alone\,” a “detachable?” I argue in this paper that an essential element of detachability consists in a statement’s capacity to function proverbially – as a stand-alone aphorism\, maxim\, proverb. Plato’s quotations from various lyric poets – among them Simonides\, Theognis\, Solon\, Pindar\, and Phocylides – illustrate how lyric poetry seems especially possessed of this capacity to generate detachable\, proverbial statements. Readings from Plato’s quotation of lyric poets in Protagoras\, Meno\, and Republic reveal that within the context of the dialogic exchange\, to speak lyrically is to speak proverbially – that is\, to marshal lyric quotation as stand-alone proverb in the dialectic. In addition\, lyric “proverbs” often seem to contradict one another\, even when composed by the same poet and within the very same poem (e.g.\, Simonides’ “Ode to Scopas” in Protagoras\, verses from Theognis in Meno). Aside from noting the connection with the sophistic educational practice of the antilogiae – itself consonant with the antilogical arrangement of ancient gnomic anthologies with their assorted proverbs gathered from different texts – I argue that the positioning of contradictory proverbs in the lyric poetry of Simonides and Theognis (“contradictory” at least\, in Plato’s act of citation) enjoys a correspondence with modern counterparts\, such as Robert Frost’s dueling proverbs in “Mending Wall.” Moreover\, lyric detachables in both Plato and Frost highlight the Janus-faced nature of proverbial expression\, revealing that contrary to popular belief\, proverbs are hardly univocal but rife with paradox and ambiguity\, qualities essential to lyric poetry. \n12.00- 1.40 pm:  Lunch break \nSession 2\n1.45 pm-2.45 pm. Marcus Folch (Columbia University) “Lyric and the geographic imagination in Plato’s Laws”  \nWhat does Plato do with lyric and what does lyric do for Plato in his last and longest work\, the Laws? To answer that question\, this paper examines allusions to elegiac poetry in Books 1&2. Plato’s engagement with poetry in the Laws has been a topic of several fascinating publications in the past decade. Taken together\, these works have advanced our understanding of Plato’s late thought on mimetic poetry\, his engagement with ancient performance culture\, and the indebtedness of fourth-century philosophy to the poetic tradition. In this paper I move away from the questions of mimetic poetry and performance culture\, and consider instead how lyric poetry in Plato is deeply embedded within\, and invites readers to reconsider\, the history of space and geography. Plato’s lyric engagements will be shown to provide a provocative guide to the allusive and argumentative tactics employed in the formation of philosophy as a literary genre. It will also illuminate the position of lyric poetry in the fourth century as a site of shared memory\, a discursive space in which diverse authors\, poets\, and presumably their audiences debated and sorted out their own collective identities\, tensions between local history and Panhellenism\, and the ethical underpinnings of legislation and colonization—the central preoccupations of the Laws as a whole. \n2.50 pm.-3.50 pm. Michael Brumbaugh (Tulane University) “Plato\, music\, and the colonial project.”   \nEarly modern Europeans were fascinated with the musical talents of the Guaraní\, the indigenous peoples of greater Paraguay. Indeed\, their travelogs\, private correspondences\, and official reports are full of testaments to their amazement. One European visitor among the Guaraní recorded in a letter that he had witnessed a twelve-year-old indigenous boy flawlessly reproduce the most challenging of Italian concertos during an impromptu cello recital. Another remarked that “[the Guaraní] were endowed with the ingenuity of birds\, whom nature herself inspires to sing.” While this interest in Guaraní musicality was doubtless influenced by European tendencies to exoticize non-European cultures\, its roots can be traced back to Plato’s interest in music as a phenomenon belonging both to the world of nature and the world of the polis. This paper investigates ways in which music – and choral music in particular – operated at the intersection of nature and culture in the early modern tradition and how some even saw it as central to the European colonial enterprise. These observations\, in turn\, offer new and provocative heuristics for interrogating Plato’s Laws\, a text framed as a colonial venture that figures music as a powerful and enigmatic force necessary for animating and perpetuating the political experience. \n3.50-4.10 pm: Coffee break \nSession 3\n4.10 pm-5.10pm. Pierre Destrée (Université catholique de Louvain) “Plato and iambic humor” \nAthenaeus wrote: “The story goes that when Gorgias read the dialogue named after him\, he said to his friends: ‘Plato’s quite talented at writing abuse-poetry (iambizein)’. Hermippus says in his On Gorgias: ‘When Gorgias visited Athens after dedicating the gold statue of himself in Delphi\, and Plato saw him and said: ‘Our fine\, gold Gorgias has arrived!’\, Gorgias responded: ‘And this is a fine new Archilochus that Athens has produced!’” (505d-e\, trans. Olson). In this paper\, I unpack these assertions (allegedly) made by Gorgias\, and I analyze a few samples of Platonic passages that echo Archilochus’ poetic devices. \n\nSaturday October 19th\, 2024\n9 am. Breakfast \nSession 1\n9.30 am-10.30 am. Giulia Sissa (UCLA) “No hymns to Eros? Platonic rhythms and rhymes in the Symposium” \nThis paper will study the continuities and discontinuities between lyric/melic poetry and the Symposium\, as a hybrid dialogue in which narrative\, praise\, banter\, and refutation come together.  I would like to start with the lamented lack of a hymn to Eros and go from there. The premise is that lyric poetry can be understood at large\, including theatrical choruses. And the hypothesis I would like to test is that the polyphonic and multi-genre conversation at Agathon’s drinking party deploys the poetic function of language both in in the speech-act of extolling Eros\, and in the verbal\, musical composition of that kind of utterance. It may sound funny. But who has the last laugh? \n\n\n10.45 am-11.45 am. André Rehbinder (University of Paris\, Nanterre) “Plato’s encounter with lyric in the Phaedrus” \nLyric poetry’s influence on Plato in the Phaedrus has long been underestimated\, so much so that Ch. Rowe\, in his edition of the dialogue\, treats Socrates’ praise of Sappho and Anacreon at 235c as ironic. In two major papers\, both published in 2007 \, E. Pender has shown the deepness and the extent of Platonic borrowings from lyric in the Phaedrus\, not only in the central myth\, but starting with the famous description of the locus amoenus in the Prologue. However\, Pender’s conclusion was highly deceptive: in the image of the bad horse falling on its knees with its jaws full of blood\, she saw an “ugly conclusion”\, where the “the lightness of Anacreon’s verse is destroyed”. At this point\, Pender says\, Plato “parts company with the poets”\, because his scope is fundamentally different: where poets were only describing desire and the abandonment of oneself to it\, the philosopher wants to show how the “best inner-ruler” (takes control over the lower parts of the soul\, in order to achieve the contemplation of Forms. The purpose of the present work is\, while acknowledging the deep relationship shown by Pender between Plato and lyric poetry\, to reevaluate it: Plato is not just quoting lyric poetry as a good description of the shock of love and using it for its own purpose; rather he valorizes lyric experience as a whole and reveals its philosophical meaning. He is not opposing lyric mania to the control of the reason-charioteer\, as Lysias does when he boasts about “not being defeated by love\, but controlling [him]self” (233c1-2\, οὐχ ὑπ᾽ ἔρωτος ἠττώμενος ἀλλ᾽ ἐμαυτοῦ κρατῶν). On the contrary\, for Plato\, to be defeated by love and to lose every control on oneself is the very means for the charioteer to obtain the greatest good\, the regrowth of the wings. In sum\, my claim is that Sappho and Anacreon could be seen as platonic lovers according to the Phaedrus: they experience the real pathos of love\, which manifests itself in the mania they described so vividly. \n12.00- 1.10 pm: Lunch break \nSession 2\n1.15 pm-2.15 pm. Julia Pfefferkorn (University of Trier): “The gods’ rewards: Plato\, lyric poetry\, and divine retribution” \nThe question what role lyric poetry plays in the Republic is an important one\, for at least two reasons: first\, it remains exempt from the formal critique of poetry in Book 3 which condemns epic and drama. And second\, the entire argument of the Republic takes its start from references to Pindar\, in the context of Cephalus’ worries about divine retribution in the afterlife\, and to Simonides\, whose poetry provides the first tentative definition of justice. In order to shed light on this question\, I turn to a hitherto neglected passage in Book 2 (362d1–368b1) in which Adeimantus joins his brother Glaucon in exhorting Socrates to praise justice in itself. He adds\, in particular\, that although some poets do praise justice\, they focus only on the honours and rewards that ensue from it\, and concludes that this will be insufficient to convince anyone of its intrinsic value. While the first part of Adeimantus’ discourse is based mostly on Homer and Hesiod\, at the end he conspicuously resorts to lyric poetry (with quotations from and implicit references to\, again\, Pindar and Simonides\, a mention of Archilochus\, and further probable references to Solon and/or Theognis). This occurs precisely when he switches to a first-person perspective\, picturing himself as a young man who is confronted with ambivalent representations of the gods and the way they reward virtue or vice. I contend that Adeimantus’ way of introducing lyric poetry in this passage anticipates important aspects of the critique of poetry\, with regard to both contents and form\, and that it may help to explain why lyric poetry\, while it is certainly included in the critique of poetic contents\, is left untouched by the formal critique: it is through Pindar’s “whether … or” (πότερον … ἤ\, 365b2) that Adeimantus presents the young man as a responsible first-person agent who makes a choice\, in a way that foreshadows the Myth of Er. While the lyric recount of divine retribution\, just as the Myth of Er\, can only be an addition (612b6–c2) to the philosophical account of justice\, establishing this perspective on one’s life is fundamental. \n2.25 pm.-3.25 pm. Kathryn Morgan (UCLA) “The great contest: exploring life choices through Pindar in Plato’s Republic” \nThis paper starts from a group of Pindar quotations and reminiscences early in Plato’s Republic and proceeds to explore the ways in which Pindaric lyric\, particularly epinician\, informs the dialogue.  Concerns with ponos\, with the correct objects of praise and blame\, and with the accurate assessment of achievement are common to both\, and Socrates’ frequent references to rewards\, prizes\, and contests reinforce the agonistic atmosphere.  Yet the nature of the contest and prizes under consideration is different\, and is reflected in a tension between the threnodic and epinician modes that is resolved in the closing pages of the dialogue. \n3.30-3.50 pm: Coffee break \nSession 3\n3.50 pm-4.50pm. Eleonora Rocconi (University of Pavia): “The role of melopoiia in Plato’s taxonomy of lyric genres”   \nIn a well-known passage of Republic Book 3 (399a–400c)\, Plato deals with the musical attributes of lyric poetry discussing which musical modes and rhythmical patterns should be allowed in Kallipolis for educating the guardians.  While commenting on their mimetic (and consequently ethical) capacity\, this passage also seems to describe which technical elements were perceived by the ancients as belonging to a specific poetic genre and gave it such a clearly recognisable character (thus anticipating what will be said in Laws 3\, 700a–c\, where a distinct μέλους εἶδος is advocated for each type of composition).  Interestingly\, these remarks are echoed in later Aristoxenian handbooks on music theory\, such as Cleonides’ Isagoge (2nd cent. CE?) when discussing modulations in μελοποιΐα (a term used by Plato too to indicate the selection of rhythms and harmoniai in poetic compositions\, cf. Symp. 187d and 205c).  The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of melopoiia in Plato’s conception of poetry by bringing the technical interpretations (both musical and philosophical) of these passages into dialogue with those more focused on the question of poetic genres. \n5.00 pm-6.00 pm. David Blank (UCLA): “The presence of Plato in Diogenes of Babylon’s treatise On Music” \n\nThe first Herculaneum papyrus to be unrolled\, so that its last 37 columns could be read (nearly) continuously contained the fourth book of Philodemus’ treatise On Music. This text\, so disappointing to its first readers\, who were dismayed not only because it was not Aeschylus or Sappho\, but also because it contained an attack on the art of music\, is an Epicurean demolition of a book by Chrysippus’ student\, Diogenes of Babylon\, and it does in fact have a great deal to contribute to our understanding of Stoic epistemology and ethics. Diogenes is clearly building on Platonic and\, to a lesser extent\, Peripatetic theories of the emotional and dispositional effects on behavior and moral character. My paper will not only examine Diogenes’ borrowings from and citations of Plato\, which extend from individual phrases to a general conception of musical êthos; I shall also trace Diogenes’ tactics in connecting Stoic theory to the Academy and vindicating the claims of the Stoa to belong to the Socratic tradition. In this\, he anticipated the later Academic\, Antiochus of Ascalon. \n 
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/plato-and-lyric-poetry-conference-oct-18-19/
LOCATION:Dodd 248
CATEGORIES:Conferences
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241014T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241014T180000
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LAST-MODIFIED:20241003T191031Z
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SUMMARY:Dan-el Padilla Peralta talk on  Mon. Oct. 14
DESCRIPTION:Dan-el Padilla Peralta (Princeton University) will give a talk entitled On the Wings of Locusts: Ancient Rome and New Ecological Histories on Monday\, October 14th at 4 PM in 6275 Bunche Hall. \nAll are welcome!
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/dan-el-padilla-peralta-talk-on-mon-oct-14/
LOCATION:Bunche Hall Room 6275
CATEGORIES:Department Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Dan-el-Padilla-flyer.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241004T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241004T173000
DTSTAMP:20241003T190321Z
CREATED:20241003T182347Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241003T190321Z
UID:8215-1728057600-1728063000@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Department of Classics and Indo-European Studies Program Welcome Reception
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/department-of-classics-and-indo-european-studies-program-welcome-reception/
LOCATION:Coral Tree Walkway
CATEGORIES:Co-sponsored event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Classics-PIES-reception-Octonber-4-24-1.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240513T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240513T130000
DTSTAMP:20240506T233701Z
CREATED:20240419T174718Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240506T233701Z
UID:7967-1715601600-1715605200@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:CANCELLED: Alex Walthall | A City in Transition: Reflections on Recent Investigations at Morgantina (Sicily)
DESCRIPTION:This lecture planned for Monday\, May 13th has been cancelled. \nA City in Transition: Reflections on Recent Investigations at Morgantina (Sicily) \nThis talk highlights the results of recent excavations carried out at the archaeological site of Morgantina in central Sicily\, work which has focused on a modestly appointed house of Early Hellenistic date and a temenos-like complex belonging to the period of Roman rule on Sicily. Both monuments—one private\, one public in nature—reveal much about life in the ancient city during moments of great political and social change. They also offer an opportunity to reflect on more recent historical biases in fieldwork practice at Morgantina as well as to set forth principles shaping the current generation of long-term research at the site. \n 
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/alex-walthall-a-city-in-transition-reflections-on-recent-investigations-at-morgantina-sicily/
LOCATION:Dodd 247
CATEGORIES:Department Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Alex-Walthall-flyer.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20240510
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20240512
DTSTAMP:20240508T151520Z
CREATED:20240202T212633Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240508T151520Z
UID:7853-1715299200-1715471999@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:CANCELLED: International Conference on “Plato and Lyric Poetry” Change of venue: May 10 - May 11 Dodd Hall 248
DESCRIPTION:At the urging of the faculty of the UCLA Classics department\, and in light of the situation on campus\, the conference on Plato and Lyric has been cancelled. \n\n\nConference Schedule:\n\nFriday May 10th\, 2024:\n9 am. Breakfast\n9.25 am Opening remarks\n\nSession 1\n9.35 am-10.35 am. Glenn Most (University of Chicago): “Pindar’s nomos basileus (Fr. 169 Sn.-M.) in Plato” \nPindar’s Nomos basileus fragment (Fr. 169 Sn.-M.) is one of his most celebrated and controversial texts. Papyrus discoveries have extended our textual knowledge of Pindar’s poem but have not resolved its interpretative difficulties. The most celebrated and controversial ancient discussion of it is provided by Callicles’ citation and interpretation of it in Plato’s Gorgias. But even the text of this quotation is uncertain\, to say nothing of the meaning attributed to it. I will discuss the extant remains of Pindar’s poem and this passage in the Gorgias\, bringing to bear upon these other ancient testimonia\, especially Herodotus 3.38 and Plato’s Laws 4 715a\, in the hope of complicating and perhaps even revising the communis opinio. \n10.45 am-11.45 am. John Tennant (Stanford University): “Speaking lyrically\, speaking proverbially.” \nPlato’s quotation of excerpts from lyric poetry in the dialogues highlights the status of those excerpts as detachable statements\, removed from their original\, textual context. This invites the question\, what makes a statement detachable? What quality allows for a text’s quotability as a “stand-alone\,” a “detachable?” I argue in this paper that an essential element of detachability consists in a statement’s capacity to function proverbially – as a stand-alone aphorism\, maxim\, proverb. Plato’s quotations from various lyric poets – among them Simonides\, Theognis\, Solon\, Pindar\, and Phocylides – illustrate how lyric poetry seems especially possessed of this capacity to generate detachable\, proverbial statements. Readings from Plato’s quotation of lyric poets in Protagoras\, Meno\, and Republic reveal that within the context of the dialogic exchange\, to speak lyrically is to speak proverbially – that is\, to marshal lyric quotation as stand-alone proverb in the dialectic. In addition\, lyric “proverbs” often seem to contradict one another\, even when composed by the same poet and within the very same poem (e.g.\, Simonides’ “Ode to Scopas” in Protagoras\, verses from Theognis in Meno). Aside from noting the connection with the sophistic educational practice of the antilogiae – itself consonant with the antilogical arrangement of ancient gnomic anthologies with their assorted proverbs gathered from different texts – I argue that the positioning of contradictory proverbs in the lyric poetry of Simonides and Theognis (“contradictory” at least\, in Plato’s act of citation) enjoys a correspondence with modern counterparts\, such as Robert Frost’s dueling proverbs in “Mending Wall.” Moreover\, lyric detachables in both Plato and Frost highlight the Janus-faced nature of proverbial expression\, revealing that contrary to popular belief\, proverbs are hardly univocal but rife with paradox and ambiguity\, qualities essential to lyric poetry. \n12.00- 1.30 pm:  Lunch break \nSession 2\n1.30 pm-2.30 pm. Eleonora Rocconi (University of Pavia): “The role of melopoiia in Plato’s taxonomy of lyric genres” \nIn a well-known passage of Republic Book 3 (399a–400c)\, Plato deals with the musical attributes of lyric poetry discussing which musical modes and rhythmical patterns should be allowed in Kallipolis for educating the guardians.  While commenting on their mimetic (and consequently ethical) capacity\, this passage also seems to describe which technical elements were perceived by the ancients as belonging to a specific poetic genre and gave it such a clearly recognisable character (thus anticipating what will be said in Laws 3\, 700a–c\, where a distinct μέλους εἶδος is advocated for each type of composition).  Interestingly\, these remarks are echoed in later Aristoxenian handbooks on music theory\, such as Cleonides’ Isagoge (2nd cent. CE?) when discussing modulations in μελοποιΐα (a term used by Plato too to indicate the selection of rhythms and harmoniai in poetic compositions\, cf. Symp. 187d and 205c).  The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of melopoiia in Plato’s conception of poetry by bringing the technical interpretations (both musical and philosophical) of these passages into dialogue with those more focused on the question of poetic genres. \n2.35 pm.-3.35 pm. David Blank (UCLA): “The presence of Plato in Diogenes of Babylon’s treatise On Music” \nThe first Herculaneum papyrus to be unrolled\, so that its last 37 columns could be read (nearly) continuously contained the fourth book of Philodemus’ treatise On Music. This text\, so disappointing to its first readers\, who were dismayed not only because it was not Aeschylus or Sappho\, but also because it contained an attack on the art of music\, is an Epicurean demolition of a book by Chrysippus’ student\, Diogenes of Babylon\, and it does in fact have a great deal to contribute to our understanding of Stoic epistemology and ethics. Diogenes is clearly building on Platonic and\, to a lesser extent\, Peripatetic theories of the emotional and dispositional effects on behavior and moral character. My paper will not only examine Diogenes’ borrowings from and citations of Plato\, which extend from individual phrases to a general conception of musical êthos; I shall also trace Diogenes’ tactics in connecting Stoic theory to the Academy and vindicating the claims of the Stoa to belong to the Socratic tradition. In this\, he anticipated the later Academic\, Antiochus of Ascalon. \n3.35-3.50 pm: Coffee break \nSession 3\n3.50 pm-4.50pm. Julia Pfefferkorn (University of Trier): “The gods’ rewards: Plato\, lyric poetry\, and divine retribution” \nThe question what role lyric poetry plays in the Republic is an important one\, for at least two reasons: first\, it remains exempt from the formal critique of poetry in Book 3 which condemns epic and drama. And second\, the entire argument of the Republic takes its start from references to Pindar\, in the context of Cephalus’ worries about divine retribution in the afterlife\, and to Simonides\, whose poetry provides the first tentative definition of justice. In order to shed light on this question\, I turn to a hitherto neglected passage in Book 2 (362d1–368b1) in which Adeimantus joins his brother Glaucon in exhorting Socrates to praise justice in itself. He adds\, in particular\, that although some poets do praise justice\, they focus only on the honours and rewards that ensue from it\, and concludes that this will be insufficient to convince anyone of its intrinsic value. While the first part of Adeimantus’ discourse is based mostly on Homer and Hesiod\, at the end he conspicuously resorts to lyric poetry (with quotations from and implicit references to\, again\, Pindar and Simonides\, a mention of Archilochus\, and further probable references to Solon and/or Theognis). This occurs precisely when he switches to a first-person perspective\, picturing himself as a young man who is confronted with ambivalent representations of the gods and the way they reward virtue or vice. I contend that Adeimantus’ way of introducing lyric poetry in this passage anticipates important aspects of the critique of poetry\, with regard to both contents and form\, and that it may help to explain why lyric poetry\, while it is certainly included in the critique of poetic contents\, is left untouched by the formal critique: it is through Pindar’s “whether … or” (πότερον … ἤ\, 365b2) that Adeimantus presents the young man as a responsible first-person agent who makes a choice\, in a way that foreshadows the Myth of Er. While the lyric recount of divine retribution\, just as the Myth of Er\, can only be an addition (612b6–c2) to the philosophical account of justice\, establishing this perspective on one’s life is fundamental. \n5.00 pm-6.00 pm. Kathryn Morgan (UCLA) “The great contest: exploring life choices through Pindar in Plato’s Republic” \nThis paper starts from a group of Pindar quotations and reminiscences early in Plato’s Republic and proceeds to explore the ways in which Pindaric lyric\, particularly epinician\, informs the dialogue.  Concerns with ponos\, with the correct objects of praise and blame\, and with the accurate assessment of achievement are common to both\, and Socrates’ frequent references to rewards\, prizes\, and contests reinforce the agonistic atmosphere.  Yet the nature of the contest and prizes under consideration is different\, and is reflected in a tension between the threnodic and epinician modes that is resolved in the closing pages of the dialogue. \n\nSaturday May 11th\, 2024\n9 am. Breakfast \nSession 1\n9.30 am-10.30 am. Giulia Sissa (UCLA) “No hymns to Eros? Platonic rhythms and rhymes in the Symposium” \nThis paper will study the continuities and discontinuities between lyric/melic poetry and the Symposium\, as a hybrid dialogue in which narrative\, praise\, banter\, and refutation come together.  I would like to start with the lamented lack of a hymn to Eros and go from there. The premise is that lyric poetry can be understood at large\, including theatrical choruses. And the hypothesis I would like to test is that the polyphonic and multi-genre conversation at Agathon’s drinking party deploys the poetic function of language both in in the speech-act of extolling Eros\, and in the verbal\, musical composition of that kind of utterance. It may sound funny. But who has the last laugh? \n\n\n10.45 am-11.45 am. André Rehbinder (University of Paris\, Nanterre) “Plato’s encounter with lyric in the Phaedrus” \nLyric poetry’s influence on Plato in the Phaedrus has long been underestimated\, so much so that Ch. Rowe\, in his edition of the dialogue\, treats Socrates’ praise of Sappho and Anacreon at 235c as ironic. In two major papers\, both published in 2007 \, E. Pender has shown the deepness and the extent of Platonic borrowings from lyric in the Phaedrus\, not only in the central myth\, but starting with the famous description of the locus amoenus in the Prologue. However\, Pender’s conclusion was highly deceptive: in the image of the bad horse falling on its knees with its jaws full of blood\, she saw an “ugly conclusion”\, where the “the lightness of Anacreon’s verse is destroyed”. At this point\, Pender says\, Plato “parts company with the poets”\, because his scope is fundamentally different: where poets were only describing desire and the abandonment of oneself to it\, the philosopher wants to show how the “best inner-ruler” (takes control over the lower parts of the soul\, in order to achieve the contemplation of Forms. The purpose of the present work is\, while acknowledging the deep relationship shown by Pender between Plato and lyric poetry\, to reevaluate it: Plato is not just quoting lyric poetry as a good description of the shock of love and using it for its own purpose; rather he valorizes lyric experience as a whole and reveals its philosophical meaning. He is not opposing lyric mania to the control of the reason-charioteer\, as Lysias does when he boasts about “not being defeated by love\, but controlling [him]self” (233c1-2\, οὐχ ὑπ᾽ ἔρωτος ἠττώμενος ἀλλ᾽ ἐμαυτοῦ κρατῶν). On the contrary\, for Plato\, to be defeated by love and to lose every control on oneself is the very means for the charioteer to obtain the greatest good\, the regrowth of the wings. In sum\, my claim is that Sappho and Anacreon could be seen as platonic lovers according to the Phaedrus: they experience the real pathos of love\, which manifests itself in the mania they described so vividly. \n12.00- 1.00 pm: Lunch break \nSession 2\n1.15 pm-2.15 pm. Marcus Folch (Columbia University) “Lyric and the geographic imagination in Plato’s Laws” \nWhat does Plato do with lyric and what does lyric do for Plato in his last and longest work\, the Laws? To answer that question\, this paper examines allusions to elegiac poetry in Books 1&2. Plato’s engagement with poetry in the Laws has been a topic of several fascinating publications in the past decade. Taken together\, these works have advanced our understanding of Plato’s late thought on mimetic poetry\, his engagement with ancient performance culture\, and the indebtedness of fourth-century philosophy to the poetic tradition. In this paper I move away from the questions of mimetic poetry and performance culture\, and consider instead how lyric poetry in Plato is deeply embedded within\, and invites readers to reconsider\, the history of space and geography. Plato’s lyric engagements will be shown to provide a provocative guide to the allusive and argumentative tactics employed in the formation of philosophy as a literary genre. It will also illuminate the position of lyric poetry in the fourth century as a site of shared memory\, a discursive space in which diverse authors\, poets\, and presumably their audiences debated and sorted out their own collective identities\, tensions between local history and Panhellenism\, and the ethical underpinnings of legislation and colonization—the central preoccupations of the Laws as a whole. \n2.25 pm.-3.25 pm. Michael Brumbaugh (Tulane University) “Between nature and culture: Platonic chorality in the Guaraní Republic of Paraguay” \nEarly modern Europeans were fascinated with the musical talents of the Guaraní\, the indigenous peoples of greater Paraguay. Indeed\, their travelogs\, private correspondences\, and official reports are full of testaments to their amazement. One European visitor among the Guaraní recorded in a letter that he had witnessed a twelve-year-old indigenous boy flawlessly reproduce the most challenging of Italian concertos during an impromptu cello recital. Another remarked that “[the Guaraní] were endowed with the ingenuity of birds\, whom nature herself inspires to sing.” While this interest in Guaraní musicality was doubtless influenced by European tendencies to exoticize non-European cultures\, its roots can be traced back to Plato’s interest in music as a phenomenon belonging both to the world of nature and the world of the polis. This paper investigates ways in which music – and choral music in particular – operated at the intersection of nature and culture in the early modern tradition and how some even saw it as central to the European colonial enterprise. These observations\, in turn\, offer new and provocative heuristics for interrogating Plato’s Laws\, a text framed as a colonial venture that figures music as a powerful and enigmatic force necessary for animating and perpetuating the political experience. \n3.30-3.50 pm: Coffee break \nSession 3\n3.50 pm-4.50pm. George Gazis (Durham University) “Dialectic lyricism: subjectivity and the search for true doxa” \nPlato’s relationship with poetry is arguably one of the most intriguing and complicated topics relating not only to the philosopher’s oeuvre in general but also both to his epistemological and metaphysical approach to fundamental concepts such as truth\, phenomenology and objective virtue\, to name just a few. In this paper\, I would like to argue that despite Plato’s and Socrates’ negative criticism of poetic composition as an uninformed and often dangerous product of human ignorance\, there appears to be a subtly drawn distinction by the philosopher concerning different poetic genres and the source of inspiration that leads to their very conception. \nMore specifically\, I argue that although Plato seriously discredits epic and dramatic poetry\, he appears to be more sympathetic towards lyric\, since the latter poets do not claim direct inspiration from a divine source\, but rather present personal interpretations not only of divine narratives but also and more importantly of the ways in which human beings can achieve a (philosophically) good life. Through a reading of Socrates’ analysis of Simonides’ ode in the Protagoras\, and Stesichorus’ Palinode in the Phaedrus\, I aim to set the initial foundations for a further examination of the use of the lyric genre in Platonic dialogues as a subjective and self-examining process that is closely reminiscent of the philosophically motivated Socratic inquiry. I will argue that a holistic reading of the Platonic corpus shows that lyric poetry is indeed the only genre that retains its standing both in terms of entertainment and educational value\, even after a strict and unforgiving Socratic elenchus (e.g. Phaedo 60a\, Laws 7.799a\, Republic 10.607a\, etc.). \n5.00 pm-6.00 pm. Pierre Destrée (Université catholique de Louvain) “Plato and iambic humor” \n\n \n \nAthenaeus wrote: “The story goes that when Gorgias read the dialogue named after him\, he said to his friends: ‘Plato’s quite talented at writing abuse-poetry (iambizein)’. Hermippus says in his On Gorgias: ‘When Gorgias visited Athens after dedicating the gold statue of himself in Delphi\, and Plato saw him and said: ‘Our fine\, gold Gorgias has arrived!’\, Gorgias responded: ‘And this is a fine new Archilochus that Athens has produced!’” (505d-e\, trans. Olson). In this paper\, I unpack these assertions (allegedly) made by Gorgias\, and I analyze a few samples of Platonic passages that echo Archilochus’ poetic devices
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/international-conference-on-plato-and-lyric-poetry/
LOCATION:Dodd Hall 248
CATEGORIES:Conferences
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240425T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240425T190000
DTSTAMP:20240404T181652Z
CREATED:20240404T181652Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240404T181652Z
UID:7951-1714064400-1714071600@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Nandini Pandey  | “The Colorblindness Gap: From Roman Diversity Beyond Affirmative Action?"
DESCRIPTION:Annual UCLA Joan Palevsky Lecture\nProfessor Nandini Pandey\, Johns Hopkins University\n“The Colorblindness Gap: From Roman Diversity Beyond Affirmative Action?“\n\n 
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/nandini-pandey-the-colorblindness-gap-from-roman-diversity-beyond-affirmative-action/
LOCATION:Fowler Museum
CATEGORIES:Palevsky Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2024-Palevsky-Nandini-Pandey.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240404T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240404T173000
DTSTAMP:20240314T205509Z
CREATED:20240314T205509Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240314T205509Z
UID:7934-1712246400-1712251800@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Alex Dressler |  The Way and Its Poor: Bareness of Life in Roman Aesthetic Theory
DESCRIPTION:The UCLA Department of Classics presents a talk by Alex Dressler (University of Wisconsin-Madison) on Thursday\, April 4 at 4:00 PM. \nThe lecture entitled “The Way and Its Poor: Bareness of Life in Roman Aesthetic Theory\,” will be held in Dodd 248 followed by a reception. \n 
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/alex-dressler-the-way-and-its-poor-bareness-of-life-in-roman-aesthetic-theory/
LOCATION:Dodd 248
CATEGORIES:Department Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/848CCC99-8546-456E-A6DF-A5393F80132F.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240312T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240312T183000
DTSTAMP:20240220T221524Z
CREATED:20240220T221524Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240220T221524Z
UID:7878-1710262800-1710268200@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Anthony Kaldellis | Who Invented the “Modern Greeks\,” and Why?
DESCRIPTION:The UCLA Department of Classics and the UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture present a Reception of Hellenic Culture Lecture Series featuring Anthony Kaldellis (University of Chicago) on Tuesday\, March 12 at 5 PM. \nThe lecture entitled “Who Invented the “Modern Greeks\,” and Why?” will be held in Dodd 248 followed by a reception.
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/anthony-kaldellis-who-invented-the-modern-greeks-and-why/
LOCATION:Dodd 248
CATEGORIES:Department Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/329053B2-80FF-4247-B814-55614169A235.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240311T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240311T133000
DTSTAMP:20231214T184047Z
CREATED:20231214T184047Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231214T184047Z
UID:7795-1710158400-1710163800@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Rubina Raja | Urban Culture in the Syrian Desert: New research on Palmyra
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/rubina-raja-urban-culture-in-the-syrian-desert-new-research-on-palmyra/
LOCATION:Dodd 248
CATEGORIES:Department Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Rubina-Raja-Flyer.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240304T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240304T183000
DTSTAMP:20240226T194534Z
CREATED:20240226T194534Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240226T194534Z
UID:7903-1709571600-1709577000@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Richard Hunter | “Plutarch and the History of Greek Poetry”
DESCRIPTION:Please join us for a talk by Richard Hunter (University of Cambridge) entitled “Plutarch and the History of Greek Poetry” on Monday\, March 4 at 5 PM in Dodd 248.  Reception to follow. \nAll are welcome! \n\n 
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/richard-hunter-plutarch-and-the-history-of-greek-poetry/
LOCATION:Dodd 248
CATEGORIES:Department Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Richard-Hunter-flyer-1.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240226T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240226T190000
DTSTAMP:20240216T171846Z
CREATED:20240216T171846Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240216T171846Z
UID:7855-1708966800-1708974000@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Andreas Schachner | “A New Look at an Ancient City: An Outline of the Development of Hattusha during the 2nd Millennium BC”
DESCRIPTION:Please join us on Monday\, February 26 at 5 PM for Prof. Dr. Andreas Schachner (German Archaeological Institute\, Istanbul\, and University of Würzburg\, Germany) for his talk entitled “A New Look at an Ancient City: An Outline of the Development of Hattusha during the 2nd Millennium BC” in Fowler Room A222.  Reception to follow. \nAll are welcome! \nLecture description \nIn the 2nd millennium BC\, despite geographical obstacles\, the Hittites succeeded in establishing the only supra-regional empire with its center in Central Anatolia\, which was one of the major political players in the competition of the great empires of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean. Even though the urban settlement of Boğazköy is several centuries older than the foundation of the Hittite dynasty\, its development reflects essential characteristics of the Hittite state. The lecture will present these events by means of a virtual tour of the city\, thus demonstrating its unique position not only in Anatolia but also in comparison with other regions of western Asia. \nAndreas Schachner biography \nAndreas Schachner (born 1967) is a senior research associate at the German Archaeological Institute´s Istanbul Section and an adjunct Professor for Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Würzburg\, Germany. After having participated in various excavations in Turkey and Uzbekistan during his education (PhD in 1999) he conducted two independent research projects in Southeastern Turkey while working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Near Eastern Archaeology of Munich University. Since 2006 he directs the German Archaeological Institute´s Boğazköy Excavations focusing not only on the Hittite remains but taking the settlement history as whole into account. The research in Hattushais characterized by an interdisciplinary approach that combines humanities and methods of various natural sciences and attaches particular importance to the application of archaeometric research. Beside his excavation responsibilities Andreas Schachner´s research interests cover a wide range of mainly Bronze and Iron Age topics reaching from the Anatolian Highlands to the Caucasus\, Syria and Mesopotamia\, but also the history of archaeology in the Near East as well as issues of heritage conservation and management. His numerous publications deal not only with his fieldwork but contribute to theoretical and methodological aspects of the Ancient Near Eastern art\, archaeometric analysis of materials as well as various aspects of the relationship between humans and their geographical environment in Antiquity.
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/andreas-schachner-a-new-look-at-an-ancient-city-an-outline-of-the-development-of-hattusha-during-the-2nd-millennium-bc/
LOCATION:Fowler Museum A222
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/8853AABD-7ED0-4E1E-AB0C-E6ABA48E1938.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231115T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231115T183000
DTSTAMP:20231031T211245Z
CREATED:20231031T211245Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231031T211245Z
UID:7734-1700067600-1700073000@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Emilio Capettini | "The Dolphine-Haunted Artifacts of Dimmed Atlantis": Evocations of Graeco-Roman Antiquity during the HIV/AIDS Crisis
DESCRIPTION:The UCLA Department of Classics and the UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture present a Reception of Hellenic Culture Lecture Series featuring Emilio Capettini (Professor\, UC Santa Barbara) on Wednesday\, November 15 at 5 PM  \nThe lecture entitled “The Dolphine-Haunted Artifacts of Dimmed Atlantis”: Evocations of Graeco-Roman Antiquity during the HIV/AIDS Crisis will be held in Dodd 248 followed by a reception.
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/emilio-capettini-the-dolphine-haunted-artifacts-of-dimmed-atlantis-evocations-of-graeco-roman-antiquity-during-the-hiv-aids-crisis/
LOCATION:Dodd 248
CATEGORIES:Co-sponsored event,Department Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Emilio-Capettini-Flyer.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231109T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231109T173000
DTSTAMP:20231004T192444Z
CREATED:20231004T192444Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231004T192444Z
UID:7658-1699545600-1699551000@classics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Andrew Laird | From Classical Rhetoric to Ethnohistory in Post-Conquest Mexico: Education of a Native Elite\, and its Consequences
DESCRIPTION:From Classical Rhetoric to Ethnohistory in Post-Conquest Mexico: Education of a Native Elite\, and its Consequences.
URL:https://classics.ucla.edu/event/andrew-laird-from-classical-rhetoric-to-ethnohistory-in-post-conquest-mexico-education-of-a-native-elite-and-its-consequences/
LOCATION:Dodd 248
CATEGORIES:Department Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://classics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Andrew-Laird-flyer-1.png
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR