Outreach & Community Engagement Programs

2024 Latin Forum

February 3, 2024

 *Each registrant can pick up their personalized schedule at check-in.

Accio Latinam! Or, Latin and the Making of Science Fiction and Fantasy

• Magic and Magical Texts in the Roman Empire—Tom Landvatter, Associate Professor of Greek, Latin, and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Humanities

Though we often think of Roman religion solely in terms of the gods—Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, etc.—a vital part of Roman religious practice was what we might call magic. Through the performance of specific rituals and the utterance of specific words, individuals believed that they bend the gods and other people to their will. We will look at magical practice in the Roman world, looking at deposits of “magical” objects as well as particular magical texts, such as curse tablets, to see how magic permeated society and was a vital part of daily life.

• The Writing on the Walls of Pompeii—Gregory MacNaughton, Education Outreach and Calligraphy Initiative Coordinator of the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery

The study of Latin paleography is often simplified into such broad time periods that it is not uncommon to hear statements like, “the Romans of the first century wrote like this.” However, even a cursory glance at the walls of Pompeii demonstrates that Latin paleography in the first century was widely varied. Citizens of Pompeii were accustomed to seeing brush-written letters, letters stamped into wet bricks, letters inscribed in stone, and letters casually scratched into the wall plaster, not to mention the variety scripts that populated the scrolls of the so-called Villa of the Papyri. In this workshop we will first have a look at the wide variety of letters found in the ruins of Pompeii and then practice writing them.

• Education in the Roman Empire—Nikola Golubović, Visiting Assistant Professor of Greek, Latin, and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Humanities

• What did Romans Make of their Sports?—Nigel Nicholson, Walter Mintz Professor of Greek, Latin, and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Humanities

Gladiatorial contests are probably what springs to mind when we talk about Roman sports, especially with Gladiator II on the way later in 2024. But there were three major-league sports in the Roman world: gladiatorial contests, chariot races, and Greek athletics. This seminar will examine various different representations of these sports, some commissioned by the victorious players themselves, some written by poets writing to please the emperor, some written by satirists, as well as a classic Greek poem for an athletic victor, a Pindaric ode. We will ask what mattered to these people about the different sports they represented, what values and aspirations—or absurdities—the different sports embodied, and how sports in general were used to communicate broader social and political values.

• Roman Bakeries and Bread—Sonia Sabnis, Professor of Greek, Latin, and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Humanities

A recent excavation at Pompeii has confirmed what we know from literature about the hard labor of enslaved people and animals involved in milling grain and baking bread for Roman consumption. In this seminar we will look at literary and material evidence for this Roman staple, paying close attention to the familiar processes and strange horrors of the Roman mill and learning about some real and fictional bread bakers.