Outreach Programs
2011 Latin Forum Schedule
Saturday, November 12, 2011
| Registration | 9:30 - 10:00 a.m. | Vollum College Center |
| Morning Lecture | 10:00 - 11:00 | Vollum Lecture Hall |
| Discussion Groups | 11:00 - 11:45 | Vollum Classrooms |
| Lunch | 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. | Kaul Auditorium |
| Individual Seminars | 1:00 - 2:00 | Vollum Classrooms |
| Individual Seminars | 2:00 - 3:00 | Vollum Classrooms |
| Optional Reactor Tour | 3:30 - 4:30 | Reservations required. Meet in chemistry lobby |
Morning Keynote in Vollum Lecture Hall:
Is There a Doctor in the Domus?
Professor Eric Nelson, Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma Washington
What treatment options did Romans have when sick or injured? How did they try to stay healthy, and what did they think "healthy" meant? We will explore the interesting range of individual choices within what we might call the Roman "health system" of the first century CE, using the contemporary account of medicine (De Medicina) of Cornelius Celsus as a jumping-off point.
Individual Seminars for the afternoon session:
I. The Millionaire’s Dinner Party - Professor Michael Brumbaugh
Particularly for the elite in Roman society, a dinner party was not only a grand affair, but it was also a complex and hierarchical social environment. In this seminar we investigate the essential elements of the Roman dinner party (convīvium), examine some of the more spectacular spaces in which they took place, and finally consider a famous scene from Petronius’ Satyricon, a burlesque where these conventions are taken to extremes.
II. Three Roman Triumphal Arches - Professor Walter Englert
Three famous triumphal arches survive in Rome: the arch of Titus, the arch of Septimius Severus, and the arch of Constantine. This seminar will examine the history of the Roman triumphal arch, its importance in Roman history, and look at images of each of the three arches. Why did the Romans adopt the triumphal arch, and how successful was it as an architectural form?
III. Reading Roman Coins - Professor Ellen Millender
While we possess a number of different archaeological sources on ancient Rome, few provide the amount of information that we can glean from Roman coins. The Romans were prolific minters of coins, and important figures throughout Roman history used coins to convey a variety of messages to the Roman people. Coins can thus tell us a great deal not only about these figures’ particular political needs but also about the basic ideals, concerns, and beliefs that they attempted to tap into and shape through coinage. In this seminar we will first learn how to analyze Roman coins and then together try to interpret a number of very important coins from the Late Republic and the first century of the Empire.
IV. The Strangeness of Ovid - Professor Nigel Nicholson
Ovid was one of the greatest writers that Rome produced, yet in his own time he was often criticized for being undisciplined and self-indulgent. In this seminar we will examine some unsettling passages from Ovid’s greatest work, the Metamorphoses, to try to understand what made his work so annoying and disturbing -- but at the same time so influential.
V. Scary Stories from the Roman Empire - Professor Sonia Sabnis
In this seminar we will read and analyze Roman tales of the weird featuring werewolves, zombies, vampires, and ghosts. Did Romans really believe in such phenomena? Were they scary, amusing, prodigious? In what contexts did such stories appear, and how were they connected with Roman superstition, religion, and history?