UCD Classics Research Seminars

2023/24

2022/23

2022

Please find a list of UCD Classics Research Seminar dates for Spring Trimester, 2021-22, as follows:

Spring Trimester, 2021/22

All seminars are online, on Zoom, and take place on Wednesday afternoons in the lecture hour from 3 to 4 p.m.

23^rd February 2022

Eric Adler, University of Maryland

‘The Future of the Humanities: Lessons from Classics’

Contemporary defenders of the humanities typically vouch for their ability to instil various skills in students, especially ‘critical thinking’. This talk will question this popular strategy through a case study from American higher education. In the late nineteenth century, US higher education witnessed the ‘Battle of the Classics’ in which interlocutors debated the role of the Classical humanities in the college curriculum. The talk will demonstrate that defenders of the modern humanities today make the exact same mistakes that defenders of the Classical humanities made in the ‘Battle of the Classics’. It will argue that humanists must stress the content of a humanistic education in order for the humanities to flourish.

Dr Eric Adler received his PhD in Classical Studies from Duke University. Prior to his arrival at the University of Maryland, he taught at Rice University, the University of Minnesota, and Connecticut College. He is the author of three books, including: The Battle of the Classics: How a Nineteenth-Century Debate Can Save the Humanities Today (Oxford University Press, 2020).

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23^rd March 2022

Ciaran McDonough, UCD School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore

‘Antiquarius, Prímchríchaire, Antiquarian, Scholar: Terminology to describe Antiquarians in Ireland from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth-Century’.

The English term ‘antiquarian’ for someone conducting research into the past derives from the Latin antiquarius, but are they the same? Focusing on the role of the antiquarian in nineteenth-century Ireland, this talk will explore the importance of terminology for the profession from the early medieval period onwards in attempting to answer this question. It will also focus on what F. J. Byrne termed ‘the Gaelic historical tradition’ and will reflect on whether the term antiquarian was employed to indicate that the research subject or methodology used was somehow less Irish.

Ciaran McDonough is a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the UCD School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore and a Research Affiliate of the ERC-funded project Classical Influences and Irish Culture. She completed her PhD in nineteenth-century Irish antiquarianism at the Centre for Irish Studies, National University of Ireland, Galway in 2017, she has published several articles on aspects of nineteenth-century Irish antiquarian research, including folklore and the translation of medieval Irish texts, and her current project focuses on the nineteenth-century translation of the corpus of medieval Irish law.

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13^th April 2022

Stephen O’Brien: 'University of Liverpool'.

‘Assessing the Dawn: Critical Responses to Graeber and Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021)’

Abstract to follow

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For further information contact (opens in a new window)Assoc. Prof Alexander Thein, K204, School of Classics, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.

UCD CLASSICS RESEARCH SEMINAR

Please find a list of UCD Classics Research Seminar dates for Spring Trimester, 2019-20, as follows:

Spring Trimester, 2019/20

4^th February:  Giacomo Savani (UCD), ‘A colonisation of the senses? The socio-cultural implications of bathing in the Romano-British countryside’

3^rd March:  Jan Haywood (Open University), ‘Herodotus’ most-Homeric Histories’

7^th April:  Genevieve Liveley (Bristol / Alan Turing Institute), ‘Homer's intelligent machines’

All seminars are at 5.30 on Tuesdays in the UCD School of Classics seminar room (K217 Newman Building, Belfield).

All welcome.

For further information contact Michael Lloyd ((opens in a new window)michael.lloyd@ucd.ie), School of Classics, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4.

Please find a list of UCD Classics Research Seminar dates for Trimester 1, 2019-20, as follows:

• 8^th October 2019: Christopher Farrell (UCD), ‘Xenophon's Mania: women and learning the “kingly” art’
• 5th November 2019:    Ahuvia Kahane (Trinity), ‘Shadows and time: Homeric dolichoskion and the nature of temporality in the ancient world’
• 19^th November 2019: Lisa Hau (Glasgow), ‘The “Fragments” of Polybius compared with those of Duris and Phylarchus: were they all "tragic" historians?’
• 26^th November 2019: Jonathan Davies (Maynooth), 'Bursting the bubble: "barbarian" historians and Greek historiography'

All seminars are at 5.30 on Tuesdays in the School of Classics seminar room (K217 Newman Building, UCD, Belfield).

All interested parties are welcome.

For further information contact (opens in a new window)Prof. Michael Lloyd K215, School of Classics, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.