Yiqun Zhou on ‘Nature, Emotion and Metamorphosis in Classical Chinese and Greco-Roman Myth and Poetry’
The Research Centre for Greek and Latin Literature of the Academy of Athens is pleased to announce the lecture by Yiqun Zhou (Stanford) on ‘Nature, Emotion and Metamorphosis in Classical Chinese and Greco-Roman Myth and Poetry’. The lecture will take place online on Thursday 19 June 2025, 11.00 New York / 16.00 London / 18.00 Athens / 23.00 Beijing (Please note the change from the usual time).
Abstract
This talk compares the roles of emotion in classical Chinese and Greco-Roman accounts about human transformation into animals, birds, plants and stones. Three sets of contrasts are observable in both textual traditions: philosophical versus mythological/literary views of the link between human metamorphosis and the natural world, positive versus negative emotions involved in the transformations, and male versus female in the gender of the protagonists who undergo both psychological and physical alteration. Treating Tao Yuanming’s Reading the Classic of Mountains and Seas and Ovid’s Metamorphoses as culminating works in their respective traditions, this inquiry examines whether/how the two poets attempt to reconcile the mythological/literary and philosophical perspectives on metamorphosis, to endow negative emotions with creative and exemplary power, and to associate that power with both male and female protagonists.
To receive the ZOOM link email mkonaris@academyofathens.gr
For the series programme see here: https://www.academyofathens.gr/en/ereyna/kentra/ereyna-latinikis/kyklos-omilion-2025
Rocking the Lyric East and West: Mountains, Cliffs and Poetic Inspiration in Horace (65-8 BCE) and Li Bai 李白 (701-762)
Sino-Hellenic Network seminar
Tuesday 17 June, 11am - 12.30pm BST (Room 1.11, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge. Refreshments at 10.30am). Sign up for Zoom here
Beth Harper (The University of Hong Kong): Rocking the Lyric East and West: Mountains, Cliffs and Poetic Inspiration in Horace (65-8 BCE) and Li Bai 李白 (701-762)
Chair: Emily Gowers (University of Cambridge)
Abstract: Veronica della Dora writes of mountains: ‘Their hard stone transcends human temporariness; it is an absolute mode of being.’ Mountains are also paradoxical beings: hanging halfway between the human, humble world of the earth (humus)and the non-human world of the heavens, they partake of the nature of both. Their lithic beauty is rooted in earth and yet unearthly. Here, I read two poets whose lyrics inscribe the phenomenological encounter of human and aura-filled stone, and discuss the ramifications for the crafting of poetic authority. Though Horace and Li Bai enshrine deep-rooted cultural thinking in a specific language, place, and time, they share a remarkable preoccupation with the special status of the lyric poet who enjoys a quasi-divine relationship with the nonhuman environment. Dangerous, unyielding, rugged cliffs and mountains are where mere mortals would fear to tread, and yet they appear in their lyrics as numinous entities in an almost symbiotic relationship with the poet. How do Horace and Li Bai’s respective philosophical inheritances from the long traditions of Greco-Roman, Confucian, Daoist and Buddhist traditions of engaging with mountains contribute to the lithic eco-materialisms we find in their work? What is it to really see a mountain? How does this ‘absolute mode of being’ contribute to each poet’s self-representation and claims to authority and specialness?
Lisa Raphals on ‘Moving Spirits: The Heavens in the Body and Mind-Body Dualism’, Academy of Athens lecture
The Research Centre for Greek and Latin Literature of the Academy of Athens would like to invite you to the lecture by Lisa Raphals (University of Edinburgh & University of California, Riverside) on ‘Moving Spirits: The Heavens in the Body and Mind-Body Dualism’.
The lecture will take place online on Thursday 12 June 2025, 09.00 New York / 14.00 London / 16.00 Athens / 21.00 Beijing.
Abstract
We all see the Heavens, albeit from different astral perspectives at different times and places. Chinese religio-philosophical literature offers many representations of the heavens specifically within the human body, of several different kinds. Conceptually, these include philosophical macrocosm-microcosm analogies and correlations between somatic sites and Daoist gods. There are also representations of journeys within landscapes, but within the body. This talk contrasts spatial spirit journeys within the body to a different kind of representation of the skies within: astral calendars that govern movements of the “human spirit” (renshen 人神) within the body, their implications for medicine, and their implications for contemporary debates on mind-body dualism in Chinese and Western contexts. It also offers a brief comparison to Greek views.
To receive the ZOOM link email mkonaris@academyofathens.gr
For the series programme see here: https://www.academyofathens.gr/en/ereyna/kentra/ereyna-latinikis/kyklos-omilion-2025
Style and the Development of Art Theory in Ancient Greece and Early Imperial China
Sino-Hellenic Network seminar
Thursday 5 June, 3.30pm - 5.00pm (refreshments at 3pm). Sign up for Zoom here
Jeremy Tanner (UCL): Style and the Development of Art Theory in Ancient Greece and Early Imperial China
Location: R.01, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge
Cynthia Liu (Oxford), Harmony in Greco-Roman and Chinese poetry
Cynthia Liu (Oxford), Harmony in Greco-Roman and Chinese poetry.
Thursday 22 May 2025, 09.00 New York / 14.00 London / 16.00 Athens / 21.00 Beijing
To China and Back: The Roundtrip Voyage of a Platonic Notion
Sino-Hellenic Network seminar
Wednesday 21 May, 3.30pm - 5.00pm. Online only, sign up here
Eric Hutton (The University of Utah): To China and Back: The Roundtrip Voyage of a Platonic Notion
Alexander Beecroft (University of South Carolina), Nature and Culture in Greek and Chinese Imagery
Alexander Beecroft (University of South Carolina), Nature and Culture in Greek and Chinese Imagery.
Thursday 15 May 2025, 09.00 New York / 14.00 London / 16.00 Athens / 21.00 Beijing
Greco-Roman and Chinese ‘Cosmopoetics’: Compared and Received
Sino-Hellenic Network seminar
Thursday 8 May, 11am - 12.30pm (refreshments at 10.30am). Sign up for Zoom here
Cynthia Liu (University of Oxford): Greco-Roman and Chinese ‘Cosmopoetics’: Compared and Received
Location: Room 1.11, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge
The tears in things: a comparative study of nature in Rutilius Namatianus’ (fl. 5th c.) “On his own return” (De Reditu Suo) and Yu Xin’s 庾信 (513-581) ‘‘Lament for the South’’ (哀江南賦)
The online lectures series on ‘Nature and natural imagery in ancient Greek, Latin, Chinese and Japanese literature’ of the Research Centre for Greek and Latin Literature of the Academy of Athens resumes with the talk of Didier Natalizi Baldi (DPhil candidate, Oxford) on ‘The tears in things: a comparative study of nature in Rutilius Namatianus’ (fl. 5th c.) “On his own return” (De Reditu Suo) and Yu Xin’s 庾信 (513-581) ‘‘Lament for the South’’ (哀江南賦)’.
The lecture will take place on Wednesday April 30 2025, 09.00 New York / 14.00 London / 16.00 Athens / 21.00 Beijing.
“The Lord a Lord, the Minister a Minister”: Probing Virtues and Roles in Ancient China and Greece
Sino-Hellenic Network speaker event
Thursday 20th March, 11.00-12.30
Richard King (University of Bern): “The Lord a Lord, the Minister a Minister”: Probing Virtues and Roles in Ancient China and Greece
Chair: Roel Sterckx (University of Cambridge)
Location: Room 1.11, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge
Please fill in the form here if you would like to attend the talk remotely. The Zoom link will be sent to you within 48 hours of the event starting.
Thinking About Emotions Across Classical Traditions
Peterhouse Theory Group
“Thinking about Emotions Across Classical Traditions” will include talks by Dr Curie Virág (Warwick) & Dr Jingyi Jenny Zhao (Cambridge), drawing especially on areas of Chinese and Greek philosophy.
Contact: Dr Lea Cantor (lyc24 “at” cam.ac.uk)
Past, Present, Text, Other: Jesuit Orientalism and Chinese Philosophy
Sino-Hellenic Network speaker event (in person and via Zoom)
Thursday 6th March, 12.30-14.00 (refreshments in the corridor at 12.00)
Nathan Gilbert (University of Durham): Past, Present, Text, Other: Jesuit Orientalism and Chinese Philosophy
Location: Room 1.11, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge
Please fill in the form here if you would like to attend the talk remotely. The Zoom link will be sent to you within 48 hours of the event starting.
Labour, leisure and inner freedom: figuring the gardener in classical Chinese and Latin poetry
The Research Centre for Greek and Latin Literature of the Academy of Athens is delighted to announce the online lecture by Beth Harper (Hong Kong) on ‘Labour, leisure and inner freedom: figuring the gardener in classical Chinese and Latin poetry’. The lecture will take place on Thursday 13 February 2025, 09.00 New York / 14.00 London / 16.00 Athens / 22.00 Beijing.
Online lecture: Representations of ancient Greek and Chinese attitudes to nature from Alexander von Humboldt (1769 – 1859) to Lin Yutang (1895 – 1976).
The Research Centre for Greek and Latin Literature of the Academy of Athens invites you to the online lecture by Michael Konaris on ‘Representations of ancient Greek and Chinese attitudes to nature from Alexander von Humboldt (1769 – 1859) to Lin Yutang (1895 – 1976). Assumptions and controversies in the history of scholarship’.
Sino-Hellenic Studies: State of the Art of the Field
The inaugural meeting of the Network will take place at 2-3.30pm (GMT) on Thursday 28th November 2024 in R.01 at the Faculty of Classics in Cambridge.
In this meeting, we will discuss the state of the art of the field of Sino-Hellenic studies and identify prominent themes and methods in the cross-cultural comparative study of Greece and China with reference to review articles on the subject…