The Study Group On Religion and Myth in the Ancient World

This group, funded by the Department of Classical Studies and the Humanities Foundation of Boston University, meets about three times per semester to discuss work in progress on, or important new developments in, any aspect of religion and myth in the ancient world. Discussion leaders are invited both from inside and outside Boston University. These discussion leaders typically send the department the work to be discussed in advance. Copies are made available two weeks before the meeting in the department or by mail to those who notify us they wish to attend.

Meetings are open to all faculty and graduate students and usually draw attendees from throughout New England.

→ All meetings are held in School of Theology Building Rm. 409
(745 Commonwealth Avenue) from 4:00 - 6:00 p.m., unless otherwise noted.

There is no pre-registration required.

Presenters for 2008-2009 include:

Stephen Trzaskoma (University of New Hampshire)
December 2, 2008
"Interpretation and Intertexts in Chariton: The Case of Tragedy"

Frank Nisetich (UMass, Boston)
February 4, 2009
"Homer Aloud and Well: style and theme in recitation"

Miranda Marvin (Wellesley College)
February 20, 2009
"Remaking the Antique: Ancient Sculpture and Early Modern Imagination"

Rita Lucarelli (Research Fellow at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies, Columbia University, and Professor, Universita degli Studi di Verona)
March 4, 2009
"Divinized Demons and Demonized Gods in Late Pharaonic and Greco-Roman Egypt"

Presenters for 2007-2008 include:

Gordon P. Kelly (Lewis and Clark College)
November 7, 2007
"The Trireme: Ancient and Modern"

Brien K. Garnard (University of Toronto, Scarborough)
December 5, 2007
"The Myths of Heracles and Busiris: The Geography, Ethnography, and Art of Human Sacrifice"

Frederick Ahl (Cornell University)
January 31, 2008
"Anchises on Roman Souls and the Roman Future"

Marc Mastrangelo (Dickinson College)
March 21, 2008
"The Decline of Latin Poetry in the Fourth Century"

Rainer Friedrich (Dalhousie University)
March 28, 2008
"de Sade and Nietzsche: The Third Sophistic, Nomos and Physis in the Age of Enlightenment"

Presenters for 2004-2005 included:

David Raeburn (Oxford University)
October 1, 2004
"Jupiter and Ovid's Metamorphoses"

Rainer Friedrich (Dalhousie University)
October 22, 2004
"Homer's Two Illiads:  Neo-analysis, Orality and Post-oral Literacy"

John Carlevale (Berea College)
December 3, 2004
"I Went to an Orgy and I Couldn't Cut It:  The Dionysian Revival in Sixties Fiction"

John Curtis Franklin (Independent Scholar)
March 25, 2005
"Lyre Gods:  Near Eastern and Greek Musical Theory and Practise"

Michael Silk (University College, London and Visiting Professor of Greek and Comparative Literature, Boston University)
April 8, 2005
"The Invention of Greek:  Poets, Macedonians and Others"

→If you wish to be put on the Study Group mailing list or if you have further questions, please contact Ms. Stacy Fox (617-353-2426)