CFP: Locating Popular Culture in the Ancient World

Seen on the Classicists list:

Locating Popular Culture in the Ancient World

School of History, Classics and Archaeology
University of Edinburgh, 4-6th July 2012

CALL FOR PAPERS: REMINDER

While the representation of the ancient world in modern popular culture has received a great deal
of scholarly attention in recent years, ancient popular culture has generally been neglected.
However, Jerry Toner’s recent Popular Culture in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, 2009) and Nicholas
Horsfall’s The Culture of the Roman Plebs (London, 2003) have shown the possibilities offered by
this fascinating field. This conference aims to bring together scholars representing a diverse range
of subjects, interests and approaches, to explore the challenges of investigating a field ignored by
traditional classical scholarship.

Crucial questions include: Was there such a thing as popular culture in the ancient world? How can
we, as scholars, locate it? What defined it? Which themes were prominent? What are the political
implications of studying the ‘popular’ in the ancient world?

Papers are invited on a broad range of subjects related to ancient popular culture:
including (but not exclusively):

• theoretical and comparative approaches to ancient popular culture
• culture and class
• popular visual culture (e.g. graffiti, artefacts)
• popular performance (e.g. comedy, mime)
• popular literary texts (e.g. fiction, oracles, fables)
• popular religion (e.g. festivals, the role of Christianity)

Confirmed speakers include Jerry Toner, Pavlos Avlamis, Serafina Cuomo, Ray Laurence, Emanuel
Mayer, James Robson and Ruth Webb.

30-minute papers are welcomed from scholars at all stages of their career. Please send abstracts
of up to 500 words by 9th February 2012.

Please send abstracts, queries or expressions of interest to the conference organiser:

Dr Lucy Grig, Classics, University of Edinburgh
lucy.grig