Colloquium Series

Fall 2021 Schedule 

Food for Thought: Man-eating Myths in Archaic and Classical Greek Art

Monday, October 11, 7 p.m. (virtual)
Dr. Michael Fowler, Assistant Professor of Art History, East Tennessee State University

Scenes involving the violation or outright inversion of culinary and (com)mensal norms are frequent in Greek art of the Archaic and Classical periods. The most discussed of such transgressive images involve the uncivilized act of binge drinking unmixed wine and, as a result, losing control of one’s mind and body. Far less studied from an iconographic perspective are scenes related to myths of man-eating, the most extreme and unsettling of all Greek culinary taboos. This paper seeks to define the iconography and meaning of cannibalistic tales in Greek art through an exploration of the individual and shared compositional features of anthropophagic scenes and their visual relationship to normative images of meat consumption. Analytical attention will also be given to the objects on which these scenes appear and the relationship between the scenes and any other decorative content. Of particular interest is the way in which the iconography reflects cannibalism’s association with other serious transgressions against Greek cultural norms, for example, filicide (e.g., Prokne slaying her son Itys) and inhospitality (Bousiris attempting to sacrifice his guest-friend Herakles).

 This event is co-sponsored with the World Languages and Art and Art History departments. Additional info on this talk is forthcoming. 

Gender-Based Violence and the Law in Latin America, Past and Present.

Tuesday, November 2, 7 p.m. (virtual)
Ángela Pérez-Villa

Dr. Pérez-Villa will be  taking a perspective of linking past and present by analyzing gender and the law in revolutionary Columbia, in the broader context of femicide in Latin America. Additional info on this talk is forthcoming.