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Classics Graduate Students Well Represented at Classical Association Meeting

November 3, 2018
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From October 18-20, graduate students Olivia Hopewell, Mary Somerville, and Christie Villareal from the Department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies presented papers at . The event was held at the Hawthorne Inn and Conference Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina at the invitation of Wake Forest University.

Olivia Hopewell鈥檚 talk titled 鈥淭he Ethics of Reading Autobiography鈥� considered the ethical stakes of the reception of Augustine鈥檚 Confessions and Dhouda鈥檚 Liber Manualis. Her paper was a selection of her Master鈥檚 thesis on autobiography and the ethics of reception, which involves a reading of Late Antique texts through the lens of 20th century philosopher Emmanuel Levinas.

Mary Somerville, whose alma mater is Wake Forest University, presented the paper 鈥淪tatius鈥� Hypsipyle and Second Stage Warfare in the Thebaid.鈥� Mary鈥檚 project explored a case study from Statius鈥� Thebaid to investigate the prevalence of second-stage (siege) imagery in the same text as a reconsideration of scenes which seem domestic in otherwise martial epic poetry.

Christie Villareal presented a section from her ongoing research into metallic imagery in Euripides with the talk 鈥淎ll that Glitters: Metallic Imagery in Euripides鈥� Electra.鈥� Her talk examined real and metaphorical metal objects mentioned in the play as a lens into late 5th century B.C.E. class strife and attitudes towards the Tyrannicides in Athens.