Outreach Programs
2012 Latin Forum Schedule
Saturday, November 10, 2012
| Registration | 9:30 - 10:00 a.m. | Vollum College Center |
| Morning Lecture | 10:00 - 11:00 | Vollum Lecture Hall |
| Discussion Groups | 11:00 - 11:45 | Vollum Classrooms |
| Lunch | 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. | Kaul Auditorium |
| Individual Seminars | 1:00 - 2:00 | Vollum Classrooms |
| Individual Seminars | 2:00 - 3:00 | Vollum Classrooms |
| Optional Reactor Tour | 3:30 - 4:30 | Reservations required. Meet in chemistry lobby |
Morning Keynote in Vollum Lecture Hall:
Slavery in Roman Life
Kathleen McCarthy
Associate Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature
University of California, Berkeley
Individual Seminars for the afternoon session:
I. Learning to Speak Like a Roman Orator: Controversiae and Suasoriae - Professor Walter Englert
Roman rhetorical schools tried to train their students to be effective speakers so that they could go on to careers in law and politics. As part of their training, students had to practice and perform controversiae (fictional law cases) and suasoriae (speeches of advice), often based on famous events from mythology and history. We will learn about the history of Roman rhetoric, and practice delivering our own short controversiae and suasoriae.
II. How to Run for Office in Republican Rome - Professor Ellen Millender
While elections for public office in Rome could be highly charged, sometimes violent, affairs, none were so contested as the elections for the highest post in the Republic, the consulship. The best source of information on the background to these elections is the little known Commentariolum Petitionis (the “little handbook on electioneering”) or the De Petitione Consulatus (“on running for the consulship”), attributed to Quintus Tullius Cicero, brother of the famous Roman orator. In this seminar we will examine this text to understand Roman notions about successful candidates and break into groups and run campaigns according to Cicero’s guide.
III. The Shape of Love in Roman Elegy - Professor Nigel Nicholson
This seminar will look at the ways that love is understood and portrayed in the highly influential genre of Roman poetry known as Elegy. We will look first at some of Propertius' elegies, and explore how Propertius represents his relationship with his puella as complex through his use of myth, through the situations he chooses to organize his poetry around, and through other figures that he creates. We will conclude with a look at how in his elegies Ovid pushes the various figures that dominate Propertius’ work to such extremes that it undermines the seriousness and poignancy of the relationship offered by Propertius' poems.
IV. Traduttore, traditore: Translating Latin in the 20th and 21st Century - Professor Sonia Sabnis
“Translator, traitor.” If we didn’t see some truth in this Italian proverb, we probably wouldn’t be studying Latin. Yet the difficulties of rendering Latin into English are ones that we confront daily. In this seminar we will discuss various contemporary approaches to translation using the poems of the Augustan poet Horace.