May 8-11, 2008

Feminism & Classics V: Bringing It All Back Home

May 8th
7pm
Angell Hall, Auditorium B

Lecture by Kristina Milnor, Barnard College
"On the Inside, Looking Out: Ancient Women's Local Knowledge"

May 10th
4:45pm
Michigan Union Ballroom

Staged Reading of Aristophanes' "Assemblywomen"
Adapted by Gregory Robic Directed by Kathryn Bosher

Sponsored by The Department of Classical Studies, The Cavafy Chair in Modern Greek, The Institute for Research on Women & Gender, and Contexts for Classics.

Friday, November 21, 2008
4:00 PM
Auditorium D, Angell Hall

INVASION: The Use and Abuse of Comparative History

Speakers
Sara Forsdyke
Classical Studies Department, University of Michigan

Susan Mattern-Parkes
History Department, University of Georgia

Rudi Lindner
History Department, University of Michigan

Eugenia Kiesling
History Department, U.S. Military Academy

Moderator
David Potter
Classical Studies Department, University of Michigan

How do we use history? In recent years scholars and pundits from all points on the political compass have delighted in drawing parallels between the sitution of the United States today and that of empires in the past, an exercise that has been stimulated above all else by the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Indeed that invasion has raised genuine questions about the use of military force, and the use of parallels drawn from the past to both justify and predict the course of events.

The questions that emerges most often from the invasion of Iraq is "how does the action of the American hyperpower compare with that of other empires, and is it doomed to lose its dominance?" Bypassing European empires of more recent date, pundits have tended to head straight for the ancient world, to the empires of Alexander and Augustus. But how are these parallels drawn, and what are the appropriate terms for framing that discussion?