16th Annual Joint Postgraduate Symposium on Ancient Drama

Monday, June 27, 2016 - 10:00am to Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - 10:00am
APGRD, University of Oxford and Royal Holloway, University of London

 Memory and Imagined Futures in the Theory and Practice of Ancient Drama

‘Memory and Imagined Futures in the Theory and Practice of Ancient Drama’

ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM

This annual Symposium focuses on the reception of Greek and Roman tragedy and comedy, exploring the afterlife of these ancient dramatic texts through re-workings by both writers and practitioners across all genres and periods. Speakers from a number of countries will give papers on the reception of Greek and Roman drama. This year’s guest respondent will be Dr Stephe Harrop (Liverpool Hope University). Among those present at this year’s symposium will be Prof. Oliver Taplin and Prof. Fiona Macintosh (Oxford) and Dr Laura Ginters (Sydney). The first day of the symposium will conclude with a performance of book one of William Zappa’s one-person version of the Iliad.

Attendance is free and registration is not required - everyone is most welcome to attend.
CONTACT FOR ENQUIRIES:

PROGRAMME

Guest Respondent: Dr Stephe Harrop (Liverpool Hope University)

Day 1: Monday 27th June 2016

Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, 66 St. Giles’, University of Oxford, OX1 3LU
 

10.45-11.00 – Registration, Welcome and Coffee

11.00-12.15 – Tradition and historical memory
Magdalena Zira (KCL) – Historical amnesia in Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis
Sarah Griffis (Harvard) – “The Power of the Tragic Language”: The Imagination of Greek Tragedy in Early Christian Texts
Giovanna Di Martino (Oxford) – A chapter in the history of Aeschylus’ reception: Italian rehashes of the Oresteia in the early modern period (1500-1750) 

12.15-12.30 – Coffee

12.30-1.25 – Tyranny and politics in twentieth-century productions  
Natalie Minioti (Thessaloniki) – The Dramatic Festival of Syracuse Sophocles’ Trachiniae of 1933: A Fresh Approach
Evelyn Richardson (Chicago) – Greek tragedy vs. the tyranny of the present in Saadallah Wannous’ Jawqat al-Tamāthīl 

1.25-2.25 – Lunch

2.25-3.20 – Remembering and remembrance (i)
Vasileia Kouliouri (Bristol) – Suspense and surprise via memory and imagined futures in Aeschylus’ Eumenides
Maria Haley (Leeds) – Family flashbacks and self-fulfilling fate: Seneca’s Thyestean feast

3.20-3.40 – Tea

3.40-4.35 – Remembering and remembrance (ii)
Marco Duranti (Verona and Freiburg) – Narrating past events and anticipating the future in the tragic prologue: the case of Euripides' Iphigenia Taurica and its modern adaptations
Adrienne White (ANU) – Soldiers on stage: the second life of Ajax and Philoctetes 

4.35-6.30 – Drinks and light supper

6.30 – Guest Speaker: Dr Laura Ginters (University of Sydney) – Agamemnon, OUDS and SUDS: the play  that began it all

7.00-8.00 William Zappa (actor) – performance from his ABC-radio-commissioned version of the Iliad 

Day 2: Tuesday 28th June 2016

Caryl Churchill Theatre, Dept. Of Drama and Theatre, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX 

10.45 – Coffee and Welcome

11.00-12.35 – Dramaturgies of Memory
Madeleine Scherer (Warwick) – ‘We can't help repeatin'': Haunting Memory in the Plays of Marina Carr
Haritini Tsikoura (Nanterre) – Medea’s memories: images of what was, what might have been and what may be in Silvia Barreiros’ Medea in Spain
Majeed Mohammed Midhin (Essex) – The reception of ancient Greek tragedy and the power of theatre in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s The Love of the Nightingale (1988)
Barbara Castiglioni (Torino) – The persistence of the shadow

12.35- 2.00 – Lunch  (optional tour of the College’s Picture Gallery, limited places avaiable - please email if interested)

2.00-3.25 – Remembering the Oresteia
Francesco Morosi (Pisa) – “Winning over opposites”: Pasolini’s Oresteia 
Peter Swallow (Oxford) – Robert Icke’s Oresteia and its classical source(s)

3.25-4.40 – Memories of Myth and Tragedy: Reflections on Practice
Amy McCauley (Aberystwyth) – Auto-Oedipa: from tragic drama to many-mouthed lyric
Houman Zandizadeh (Flinders) – Phaedra in Persia: a writer’s journey
Nana Biluš Abaffy (Monash) – Memory womb: Aeschylus and the monolithic memory of the sacrificed daughter 

4.40-5.00 – Tea

5.00-6.00 – Plenary, Response from Dr Stephe Harrop

6.00 – Drinks 

Download a pdf of the full programme here: PDF icon Final programme Postgraduate Symposium 2016.pdf
Download a pdf of the Call for Papers here: PDF icon PG_Symp_2016_cfp.pdf