Duke-UNC Classics Graduate Colloquium

The Department of Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill together with the Department of Classical Studies of Duke University present:

Controversiae Docendae: Teaching Sensitive Topics from the Classical World

Saturday, April 2, 2016
All events will be held in Murphey Hall, Room 116.

Presenters include Dr. Robert Garland (Colgate University), Dr. Hunter Gardner (University of South Carolina) and Dr. Sharon James (UNC-Chapel Hill). See workshop descriptions and the program for further details.

RSVP is greatly appreciated, but not required: http://goo.gl/forms/AjFqYfXWgj

This event is sponsored by the Classics departments of Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and is funded in part by UNC-CH Student Government, Duke Classics, and UNC-CH GPSF.

Colloquium Speakers

Dr. Robert Garland
Dr. Robert Garland is a Professor of Classics at Colgate University, where he has been teaching since 1986; he received his Ph.D. in Ancient History from University College London.  He has published widely on Roman history as well as numerous aspects of ancient Greek society, including religion, daily life, funerary ritual, tragedy, and most recently, refugees and other displaced persons.  In addition to his talk on teaching sensitive topics as a white male classicist, he can also speak on disability and disfiguration, infanticide, and transgender issues in the ancient world.

Dr. Hunter Gardner
Dr. Hunter Gardner is an Associate Professor of Classics at the University of South Carolina, where she is also a member of the core faculty of the Comparative Literature Program and an affiliate of Women’s and Gender Studies.  She is also a returning Tar Heel, having received her Ph.D. from UNC in 2005.  Her research and publications span the areas of gender and elegy, reception studies, and most recently, the development of plague narratives, particularly in Roman epic poets of the late Republic and early Principate.  Her talk concerns explicit portrayals of violence in epic, but she will also be happy to discuss such topics as gender, rape, and returning veterans.

Dr. Sharon James
Dr. Sharon James is a Professor of Classics and an adjunct member of the departments of Comparative Literature and of Women’s and Gender Studies at UNC Chapel Hill.  She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in Comparative Literature.  She has published extensively on Ovid, Roman comedy, and elegy, with research interests ranging from Homeric family structures to Italian epic.  Her talk concerns teaching about rape in the Classics classroom, but she can also speak on a range of issues relating to women, gender, trauma, and slavery.