IPS
CALL FOR PAPERS FOR THE MEETING OF THE APA
IN
ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA (JAN. 2010)
PLUTARCH
AND THE SECOND SOPHISTIC
Sponsored
by the International Plutarch Society
Organized by Mark Beck
The
Second Sophistic is a period (ca. 60-260 CE) of heightened awareness
among the Greek elite of their great cultural legacy in a world
dominated by Rome. The writings of Plutarch represents many of
the main intellectual currents of this movement and he has been
described as “perhaps the most important author of the second
sophistic period” (Simon Swain). The main focus of this
panel will be to explore Plutarch’s epideictic speeches
or declamations, as they are called, the body of his writings
that perhaps most clearly aligns him with other sophists: On the
Fortune of the Romans, On the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander I
and II, Were the Athenians More Famous in War or in Wisdom?. We
also invite papers that investigate the various other writings
of Plutarch against the backdrop of his literary environment.
Contrasts are invited between Plutarch and Dio Chrysostom, Arrian,
Appian, Athenaeus, Philostratus, Lucian, Aelius Aristides, Apollodorus,
Cassius Dio, Pausanias, Polyaenus, etc. Various approaches may
focus inter alia on the transformative interpretations of the
Greek past in the Second Sophistic, single topics such as Alexander
the Great or the Trojan War, Parthia, sympotic literature, declamation,
biographical literature and historiography, politics, local history,
the recasting of Classical authors, mythography, military tactics,
religious syncretism, Roman citizenship and Greek identity, literary
style, translations, forms of archaism (e.g. Atticism), philhellenism,
the Roman emperor and the Greek philosophic advisor, etc.
Abstracts
of 500-800 words for papers requiring not more than twenty minutes
for delivery should be submitted by February 10th 2009 to Mark
Beck. This may be done by email: beck.mark.a@gmail.com;
by FAX: (803) 777-0454, or by mail: University of South Carolina,
Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Columbia,
South Carolina 29208. Consultation by phone is welcome at (803)
407-5741. All abstracts will be judged anonymously. Membership
in the International Plutarch Society is not required.
Not
sure of your membership status? Email us today at
ips@usu.edu
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