CONTEXTS FOR CLASSICS PROPOSAL

November 1, 2000
Proposal for Funding

Organizing Committee:
Vassilios Lambropoulos, Modern Greek Chair, Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature
James I. Porter, Associate Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature
Yopie Prins, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature

We are requesting support for an interdepartmental faculty initiative at the University of Michigan, to stimulate new interdisciplinary perspectives on Classical studies. We wish to encourage dialogue and collaboration among colleagues who are interested in defining ancient and modern contexts for Classics, in their research and in their teaching. Drawing on existing strengths among faculty as well as recent appointments across various departments and programs, we have formed a consortium of faculty members who meet for discussion and exchange of ideas. During the 1999-2000 academic year we organized a series of colloquia under the rubric, "Contexts for Classics," and coordinated our scholarly and curricular activities. This initiative has received encouragement and support from the Department of Classical Studies and the Program in Comparative literature, both of which have participated actively in co-sponsoring events. After a meeting in September 2000, Sharon Herbert (Chair, Classical Studies) has made a pledge of financial support, and Tobin Siebers (Program Director, Comparative Literature) has also expressed interest in our future plans.

Building on the success of these efforts, we wish to continue Contexts for Classics on an ongoing basis at the University of Michigan, with a budget to sponsor speakers and to hire an assistant for the administration of activities associated with Contexts for Classics. We have in mind three primary goals for this initiative: to enrich the existing curriculum, to encourage interdisciplinary exchange among colleagues at our university, and to contribute to critical debates within the broader community. To this end, we will organize workshops and lectures, team-taught courses, scholarly collaborations, and other creative ventures to explore past, present, and future contexts for Classics. The paragraphs that follow offer a more detailed statement of purpose, our activities to date, a description of our plans for the future, and a proposed budget for a three-year period.

Statement of Purpose

Our intellectual purpose in organizing Contexts for Classics is to rethink the discipline(s) of Classical Studies from various critical, historical, and pedagogical perspectives. We are interested in the relationship between antiquity and modernity, not to reclaim a common cultural heritage through the study of ancient Greece and Rome, but to interrogate the very construction of a Classical idea (or ideal). To pursue this critical interrogation of Classics, it is important to theorize our relation to the study of Classical antiquity and to articulate paradigms for reception and transmission that enable us to complicate broad claims to "Classical Tradition."

We need an ongoing forum for debate on these questions, particularly pertinent at a time when the study of Classics is going through transformation and reconfiguration at American universities. Increasingly, Classicists are becoming attuned to the history of their discipline, and aware that the survival of Classics in the future can be enhanced by exchange with other disciplines. Since the University of Michigan is distinguished by its emphasis on interdisciplinarity, we have the opportunity to expand the range of Classical studies to include faculty already engaged with Classics through other departments, programs, and schools (such as History, English Literature, Philosophy, Comparative Literature, Modern Languages, History of Art, Architecture, Music, and so on). Alongside the recent emergence of ancient and modern studies at other major universities Contexts for Classics could play a leading role in defining new directions for research, both within and beyond the University of Michigan.

In addition to developing an interdisciplinary dialogue, we are also dedicated to curricular development at the University of Michigan. We wish to coordinate undergraduate and graduate courses that offer various contexts for the study of Classics, and to introduce new interdisciplinary courses with the possibility for team-teaching across departments. We are also developing a broader network of support for graduate students pursuing advanced research in Classical Studies or topics related to Classics.

Description of Activities

During the 1999-2000 academic year a consortium of faculty members was formed, to meet for conversation about our research and teaching activities related to Classical Studies. We agreed to discuss, coordinate, and advertise our course offerings whenever possible, and we established an email list to announce events, plans, and other information about Contexts for Classics (cfc@umich.edu). To consolidate these efforts, we plan to circulate a poster advertising CFC courses, and to prepare a general brochure that describes Contexts for Classics and the interests of faculty associated with it.

Recent courses we have offered that are relevant to Contexts for Classics include "Classical Traditions and History of Interpretation" (James Porter and Sally Humphreys, Graduate Seminar in History and Classics, Fall 1998), "Sappho and the Lyric Tradition" (Yopie Prins, Comparative Literature 434, Winter 1998), "The Classics Tradition in Europe and the Americas" (Sabine MacCormack, Classical Civilization 480, Winter 1999), "Theorizing Women in Antiquity" (Sara Rappe, Classics and Women's Studies), "The Adventures of Odysseus through the Centuries" (Vassilis Lambropoulos, Comparative Literature 240, Fall 1999), "Modern Greece: Between Antiquity and Modernity" (Artemis Leontis, Classics 121, Winter 2000),"Platonic Love, Ancient and Modern" (David Halperin, English 317, Winter 2000), "On the Soul: Plato, Lucretius, Freud" (James Porter, Graduate Seminar in Comparative Literature, Winter 2000), "Women Writers and Classical Myth" (Yopie Prins, Comparative Literature 140, Fall 2000), "Introduction to Interpretation through Readings of Antigone" (Vassilis Lambropoulos, Comparative Literature 601, Winter 2000 and Fall 2000), Future course offerings will include "Plato in the Renaissance" (Sara Rappe), "Classicism" (James Porter), "Hispanic Antiquity: Greco-Roman Culture in the Spanish Americas" (Benjamin Acosta-Hughes), "The Spartan Mirage: Images of Sparta from Antiquity to the Present" (Sara Forsdyke), and "Visions of Rome: Comparative Studies" (Sabine MacCormack).

To create a broader forum for discussion, our consortium became actively involved in a series of public events at the University of Michigan during the last academic year. In October 1999, we participated in a panel for "Body/Bildung: Discipline, Desire and the Humanities," a conference organized in conjunction with a Distinguished Faculty and Graduate Student Seminar on disciplines and interdisciplinarity, sponsored by OVPR and co-taught by Sally Humphreys and James Porter. This interdisciplinary conversation continued in a seminar on "Rethinking the Discipline(s) of Classical Studies," organized by Yopie Prins for the meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association in March of 2000, at Yale University. We hope to continue the momentum of such faculty collaborations, bringing together colleagues from various institutions to discuss new approaches to the study of Classics.

Contexts for Classics has also organized its own colloquium series, co-sponsored by various departments. The first CFC Colloquium (held in November 1999, co-sponsored by Classical Studies and the Humanities Institute) was a round table discussion with Anne Carson (Visiting Fellow at the Institute for the Humanities). The second CFC Colloquium (held in February 2000, co-sponsored by Comparative Literature, Classical Studies, English Literature, History, and the School of Education) was a seminar on "Oxford and Cambridge as Sites of Classical Transmission" with Christopher Stray, guest speaker from the University of Wales and author of Classics Transformed. The Modern Greek Chair also sponsored public lectures by Anne Waldman in October 1999 and Edmund Keeley in April 2000, on Classical legacies in modern Greek poetry. Faculty members who collaborated in CFC events last year included Benjamin Acosta-Hughes (Assistant Professor of Classical Studies), Susan Alcock (Associate Professor of Classical Archaeology), Catherine Brown (Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Comparative Literature), Sara Forsdyke (Assistant Professor of Classical Studies), David Halperin, (Professor of English Literature), Vassilios Lambropoulos (Professor of Classical Studies and Modern Greek Chair), Artemis Leontis (Adjunct Associate Professor of Classical Studies), James I. Porter (Associate Professor of Classical Studies and Comparative Literature), Yopie Prins (Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature), Sara Rappe (Associate Professor of Classical Studies), Ruth Scodel (Professor of Classical Studies).

Future Plans

In addition to preparing a brochure with general information about Contexts for Classics, and collecting/circulating CFC course information every year on a poster, we would like to design a website for the purpose of posting information, events, and activities associated with CFC. We are planning various lectures of interest to the university community, and will invite outside speakers to conduct workshops and seminars with faculty and students. We are also recruiting additional faculty members into our consortium and hope to build new bridges between LS&A and other units across campus, including the Art Museum, the School of Music, the School of Architecture, the School of Education, the Law School, the Humanities Institute, the International Institute, the Life Sciences Initiative, the Media Union, and so on. CFC could sponsor dramatic performances and film series, as well as creative collaborations in performing music, dance, visual arts, creative writing. We wish to promote discussion about Classics in the history of architecture, ancient and modern medicine, museum studies, translation studies, constructions of the body and sexuality, histories of the book, ideologies of education, political theory, and so on: these are just a few of many possibilities for interdisciplinary exchange.

More specifically, plans for the 2000-2001 academic year include a lecture by Andrew Stewart (Professor of Art History, UC Berkeley) on the Renaissance reception of a Classical statue, and a colloquium with Daniel Selden (Professor of Classics, Stanford University) on the reception of Virgil. Benjamin Acosta-Hughes has also organized an ongoing series of roundtables open to the general public, entitled "Overtures: The Ancient World and Modern Art." This series features visiting artists in dialogue with faculty from various departments, followed by a reception to encourage informal exchange. In October 2000, "Overtures" hosted a reception and discussion with Ruth Weisberg (Visiting Artist at the Institute for the Humanities and the Museum of Art) about "The Villa of the Mysteries," and the next event in this series will be a roundtable with Athol Fugard (Guest Speaker in the UM Visiting Writer Series) about "Antigone in Africa" in December 2000. CFC hopes to feature Mark Morris in the "Overtures" series as well, during his artistic residency with the University Musical Society in the spring of 2001. A related event featuring the interplay between Classical myth and contemporary artists was the performance of "Mail: Daphne and Apollo Re-Made," a collaboration between poet Alice Fulton and composer Enid Sutherland, in "Mail: Daphne and Apollo Re-Made." After the concert premier (organized by the Institute of Research for Women and Gender, in conjunction with the opening of Lane Hall in October 2000), Yopie Prins moderated a discussion and conducted a videotaped interview; these events were integrated into a First Year Seminar sponsored by LS&A on "Women Writers and Classical Myth."

Another series related to Contexts for Classics, entitled "Conversations on Site," has been organized by the Modern Greek Chair. The series began in January 2000, bringing together an anthropologist (Susan Sutton, Indiana University) and an archaeologist (Susan Alcock, University of Michigan) to discuss how past meets present in Classical sites. The second "Conversation on Site" will take place in January 2001, when Art Historians Amy Papalexandrou (University of Michigan) and Veronica Kalas (New York University) will discuss and compare medieval and Classical approaches to sites in the Graeco-Roman world.

In the hope that we will secure CFC funding over a longer term, plans for the following academic year (2001-2002) are underway as well. We would like to invite Helene Foley (Professor of Classics, Barnard College) to speak on modern performances of the Agamemnon in the fall of 2001. Related to this interest in performing Classical drama, Sara Rappe is coordinating support for incorporating performative elements in Classics courses; this is an initiative in undergraduate teaching that will also involve students and faculty at the Residential College. We will continue planning events in the "Overtures" series, in conjunction with visiting performers and artists for the University Musical Society and the University Museum. The Museum and the Library will also be the locus for a large-scale exhibit organizing by the Modern Greek Chair, bringing together ancient and modern contexts for the poet Cavafy in the spring of 2002.

In addition, CFC hopes to organize a mini-conference on "Classicisms," featuring the work of several external and internal speakers. James Porter has been designated the chair of a panel sponsored by the APA Committee on the Classical Tradition, for the annual meeting of the American Philological Association in January of 2002. The week thereafter we hope to invite members of this panel to the University of Michigan to continue their discussion on campus; a collection of essays on this topic, edited by James Porter, has been solicited by Princeton University Press. These plans illustrate how our research and teaching interests are increasingly driven by questions raised through Contexts for Classics.

Meanwhile, we are gathering information about related projects at other institutions, such as the Classical Traditions Colloquium at Northwestern University, the Institute for the Classical Tradition at Boston University, the Archive on Greek Drama in Performance at Oxford, the Bristol Institute of Hellenic and Roman Studies, the Center for the study of Roman Culture and its Reception at the University of Reading, and various programs in ancient and modern studies at New York University, Cambridge University, the University of Heidelberg, and elsewhere. We hope our initiative will be distinctive by virtue of its critical approach to Classical tradition, as we question the ways in which antiquity comes to be produced as a Classical inheritance and explore the Classical past as an inexhaustible resource for self-definition in an ever-changing contemporary present. Questions like these can help bring out the ultimate relevance of Classics at any moment in time, and will serve as a bridge to other disciplinary inquiries in our academy today.