Christopher Roberts Lecture Series at Dickinson College

Each fall the Department of Classical Studies invites noted scholars to present a lecture containing at least one significant, original finding or thesis not previously presented in public, either in print or orally. This lecture is delivered on Saturday afternoon, to allow interested faculty, students and people from the area to attend. The topic is one of potential interest to teachers of classical studies at the college level. A concert follows.

A second lecture -- directed to a wider audience -- is delivered on the previous Friday afternoon. All three events are free and open to the public. 

Inaugural Event - 1998

Christopher Pelling, Oxford University
September 25 & 26, 1998
"Caused, Scientific & Other: Hippocrates & Historians"
Respondent: Rosaria Munson, Swarthmore
2nd lecture: "Antony & Cleopatra: Legend, Literature & History"
 

15th Annual Christopher Roberts Lecture

September 21 & 22, 2012

Walter Scheidel, Dickason Professor in the Humanities,

Professor of Classics and History,  Stanford University

The Long Reach of Antiquity: Rome, China, and Modernity

Historians and social scientists continue to disagree on the causes of the divergent social and economic development of China and the ‘West’ during much of the last two centuries. Systematic comparison of key features in the ancient history of eastern and western Eurasia offers new answers to this fundamental question by highlighting the evolution and long-term consequences of ancient institutions and beliefs in their specific ecological contexts. How much did the emergence of the modern world owe to developments in the distant past? 

Redrawing the Map of the Roman World

 

Ancient societies were shaped by logistical constraints that are almost unimaginable to modern observers. “ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World” stanford.edu  for the first time allows us to understand the true cost of distance in building and maintaining a huge empire with premodern technology. This talk explores various ways in which this novel Digital Humanities tool changes and enriches our understanding of ancient history.

 

14th Annual Christopher Roberts Lecture

Friday, September 30th and Saturday, October 1, 2011

Emily Greenwood, Associate Professor
Yale University, Dept of Classics

Prof. Greenwood studied Classics at Cambridge University, where she gained her BA, MPhil, and PhD degrees.  Her research interests include ancient Greek historiography, Greek prose literature of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, twentieth century classical receptions (especially uses of Classics in Africa, Britain, the Caribbean, and Greece), Classics and Postcolonialism, and the theory and practice of translating the 'classics' of Greek and Roman literature. 

 13th Annual Christopher Roberts Lecture

Edward N. Luttwak, Senior Fellow, Center for Strategic & International Studies, Washington, DC

ctober 1 st & 2nd, 2010

Grand Strategy in Byzantium and Contemporary Washington

2nd lecture: 
Pleasures and Problems in Studying Byzantium
Respondent:  John F. Haldon, Princeton University

12th Annual Roberts Lecture

Mary Beard, Newnham College, Cambridge
October 2 & 3, 2009
"Seeing the Funny Side of It: What Made the Romans Laugh?"
Respondent: None
2nd lecture: "Perhaps our Expectations were Wrought up too High: Visiting Pompeii in the Nineteenth Century"

11th Annual Roberts Lecture

Jas Elsner, Corpus Christi College, Oxford
October 3 & 4, 2008
"Beyond Compare: Pagan Saint and Christian God in Late Antiquity"
Respondent:  Peter T. Struck, University of Pennsylvania
2nd lecture: "Reflections on Jesus' Trial: Image and Rhetoric in Early Christian Sarcophagi"

 
10th Annual Roberts Lecture

Daniel Mendelsohn, Bard College
October 5 & 6, 2007
"From Roman Games to Reality TV: Mass Entertainment and Imperial Politics, Then and Now"
Respondent:  None
2nd lecture: "'Lost' Between Witness and History: Writing the Holocaust for the Next Generation"

9th Annual Roberts Lecture

Denis Feeney, Princeton University
September 22 & 23, 2006
"Finding Early Rome in Ancient & Modern Historiography"
Respondent: John Dillery, University of Virginia
2nd lecture: "Wormholes at the Site of Rome: Touring Virgil's Rome in 1177 BC, 20 BC and 2006 AD"

8th Annual Roberts Lecture

Stephen Halliwell, University of St. Andrews
September 23 & 24, 2005
"Laughter and the (Pagan) Body: the Antigelastic Tendencies of Early Christianity"
Respondent:  Ralph Rosen, University of Pennsylvania
2nd lecture:  "Taking Greek Laughter Seriously"
 

7th Annual Roberts Lecture

Danielle Allen, University of Chicago
October 1 & 2, 2004
"Homeland Security: Democracy & Knowledge"
Respondent:  Ryan Balot, Washington Univ, St. Louis
2nd lecture: "On the Pleasures of Translating Greek Lyric Poetry"
 

6th Annual Roberts Lecture

Miriam Griffin, Somerville College, Oxford
April 23 and 24, 2004 (postponed from the fall due to hurriane)
"Through the Looking Glass: Seneca's De Beneficiis and Roman Society"
Respondent: Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago

2nd lecture: "Nero the Showman"

5th Annual Roberts Lecture

Paul Cartledge, Cambridge University
September 20 & 21, 2002
"Citizenship Then and Now: Institution, Practice, or Culture?"
Respondents: Josiah Ober, Princeton; Barry Strauss, Cornell
2nd lecture: "Exemplars of Western Civilization? A Fresh Look at the Ancient Spartans"

4th Annual Roberts Lecture

Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago
September 28 & 29, 2001
"Duties of Justice, Duties of Material Aid: Cicero's Problematic Legacy"
Respondent: Richard Bett, The Johns Hopkins University
2nd lecture: "Cicero's Letters: Grief in Philosophy & in Life"

3rd Annual Roberts Lecture

Shadi Bartsch, University of Chicago
September 29 & 30, 2000
"Incontient Eyes: An Ethics of the Gaze in Early Imperial Rome"
Respondent: Andrew Feldherr, Princeton
2nd lecture: "A Pint of Blood, a Piece of Flesh: Paradoxes of the Body in the Time of Nero"

2nd Annual Roberts Lecture

Karl Galinsky, Univ of Texas at Austin
September 25 & 26, 1999
"Homer & Tragedy in Vergil's Aeneid"
Respondent: Vassiliki Panoussi, Williams College
2nd lecture: "What is Augustan about the Augustan Age?"