1st International Graduate Conference (Classical Association of Ghana)

The Classical Association of Ghana invites graduate students and early career researchers (with not more than two years research experience after PhD) to submit abstracts (and, subsequently, papers based on the abstracts) for our maiden two-day international graduate conference, taking place (in person) on December 16-17, 2025, at the University of Ghana, Legon.

Theme:

In this conference, we seek to explore ‘vice’ and its various manifestations and effects. Vice is traditionally conceived as that which is deficient or falls short of good. It manifests in several ways: the social (epistemic injustice: when a hearer gives a deflated credibility to a speaker not based on the merit of the speaker’s discourse but due to either race, gender, religious identity, or any such reason, Fricker 2009); the political (kakistocracy: bad governance, political corruption; kakonomia, bad constitution); the moral (licentiousness, sloth, greed due to the competitive strength of pleonectic hankerings over continence or moderation). Our goal is to invite graduate students and early career researchers in Classics and Philosophy to explore this important concept.

Thematic areas to explore include, but are far from being limited to, the following:

• The nature and metaphysics of vice (a self-destructive entity?)

• Agency, freewill, and vice

• Political corruption

• Epistemic Injustice

• Bad laws and governance

• The phenomenology of hate

• Thucydides on the origin of stasis and polemos

• Hubris and Apotheosis

• The psychology of evil

• Greek tragedy and vice (e.g., infanticide, matricide, uxoricide, conjuxide, etc.)

• God, humans, and the limits of piety and reason (e.g. Oedipus’ fate, Creon and Antigone on right decision making)

• The origin of evil

• African concept of evil

Application:

Submitted abstracts should be between 300-500 words. Those whose abstracts are selected will be given a four-month period to submit their full papers. Each presenter will be allocated 20 minutes for presentation and 10 minutes for Q & A. Each paper will be assigned a responder, a senior researcher in the thematic area selected.

Please send abstracts as pdf to sopeprah@ug.edu.gh and moa24@cam.ac.uk with the subject line “Graduate Conference in Ghana”.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: May 30, 2025.

Other:

This conference is part of the ongoing activities undertaken as part of the Classics Beyond Borders collaboration between the Classical Association of Ghana, University of Ghana, University of Cape Coast, Princeton University (USA), and University of Cambridge (UK).

The conference is generously supported by Princeton Africa World Initiative, Princeton University, and Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge. Travelling bursaries (from your main capital cities, e.g., Johannesburg, to Accra) are available for successful applicants from universities in Africa. Please indicate in your submission if you would like to be considered for a bursary.

Conference Organisers:

Stephen Peprah (PhD) (University of Ghana & University of Toronto)

Michael Okyere Asante (University of Cambridge & UESD, Somanya)

Women as Authors of Latin Literature

The RELICS research network is delighted to invite you to attend the virtual roundtable on “Women as Authors of Latin Literature”

Speaker Lineup:

Jane Stevenson (Oxford): ‘Hiding in Plain Sight?’

Johanna Luggin (Innsbruck): 'Agency and Impact: Useful Concepts for the Study of Women Writers?'

Patrick Burns (New York): ‘Initial Steps toward a Linguistic Dataset of Latin Texts Written by Women’

Giacomo Evangelisti and Chiara Bellavegli (Rome): ‘Centre MedioEvA: Ideas for a New Literary Canon’

Skye Shirley (London): 'Women's Latin Writing: Appreciating Abundance'

Anne Larsen and Stephen Maiullo (Holland, MI): 'Women Latin Writers and the Canon: The Case of Anna Maria van Schurman'

Registration via email (relics@ugent.be)

Classics in Africa Initiative:

“A recent visit to Trinity College, Dublin, has highlighted the difficulties of Classics Departments in Africa, who are operating under great constraints, with limited resources, cuts, departmental mergers, etc. We (Classicists) write a good deal about ‘decolonizing classics’ and would like to try to offer some practical help:

“The idea is to bring together Classics partners from Africa - Ibadan (Nigeria), Accra (Ghana), Western Cape (South Africa), Malawi, Uganda - and from multiple European institutions. We would like to propose a specific Classics in Africa grant to support the following:

• African visiting scholarships

• Student exchanges

• Language teaching via Zoom

• Conferences

“This idea is still only in its nascent stages, but please do let us know if you are interested in collaborating with us on this project, or if you have any ideas we might take into consideration in the formulation of a proposal.

“We hope you can join us at this time. If you cannot, please let us know and we’ll find a way of arranging another meeting by Zoom at a mutually convenient time.”

To join the Zoom meeting, please use the link below:

Roundtable on Gender in Latin Studies

“In the past two years, the research group RELICS organised online roundtable discussions on the future of Latin studies and education. Excellent impulse talks and vivid discussions made the events a success, which is why we have decided to continue the effort. We continue to  focus on topics which last years’ discussions highlighted as particularly relevant for the field. This year, we will look at women as authors of Latin literature from various points of view.

“In recent years the study of women authors has grown in importance in Latin studies. This invites us to rethink the field’s boundaries and traditions. We seek perspectives on women, past and present, who used Latin to express themselves. Some view modern feminist theories as vital to the field, while others question their applicability. Does integrating today’s feminist and gender theories risk overlooking the unique contexts of historical texts? Another point of interest is the role of social class and other identity markers in shaping women’s representations.

“Questions of representation and canon formation remain at the heart of these debates: which texts are privileged, and how do we teach these texts? Finally, we seek input on regional variations in approaches to gender in Latin studies. How do perspectives from different countries interact, and is it possible to trace broader regional approaches shaped by distinct cultural and scholarly traditions? We invite scholars of all career stages to share their ideas on gender in Latin studies with us.

“We plan to hold the event on 11 March 2025 over Zoom. The exact time will be decided on the basis of participants’ time zones and will be communicated later. For now, we invite concrete expressions of interest: short thoughts that you would consider worth discussing or more elaborate proposals for a substantial contribution to the discussion. From this, we will select speakers to give impulse talks of five minutes that will serve as a basis for the ensuing discussion.”

Proposals and any remaining questions should be sent by 13 January to relics@ugent.be.