Classics

In this essay, I examine Lois Ann Yamanaka's novel in regard to other recent novels about autism -Daniel Isn't Talking by Marti Leimbach (2006) and Eye Contact by Cammie McGovern (2006). I consider how the characters of autistic children often function as a "narrative prosthesis," a kind of catalyst to get the plot going. I look at the themes of silence and coming into speech in Asian American literature in order to show how they overlap in texts about autistic children and their mothers. Reading Father of the Four Passages in the context of other Asian American novels, I suggest that Sonia's Asian American heritage provides her with an alternate experience of cultural alienation that leads to her acceptance of Sonny Boy and his differences. Finally, I provide a critique of standard, white, middle-class narratives of autism, which dominate the literature and which perpetuate troubling stereotypes.

Applying concepts of neurodiversity and cognitive difference --that, just as people have diverse ethnic, racial and religious identifies, they can also have diverse ways of experiencing and being in the world based on their neurology --to pre-twentieth century texts poses not only interpretative but also ethical challenges. To consider issues raised by 21st-century concepts of neurological difference in regard to ancient texts presumes that neurological diagnoses such as autism have always existed, though under different names as epilepsy was described as the "sacred disease" by the 4th century medical writer Hippocrates. In this essay, I attempt such an analysis of Homer's epic poetry using concepts drawn from neurodiversity, to highlight how intellectual and physical disability are therein represented.

A review of the book has recently been posted on the BMCR website. I am grateful to Professor Claus for his constructive criticism and for his receptive review.

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2015/2015-03-13.html



"Although the Annals of Quintus Ennius was profoundly influenced by Greek epic poetry, the fragments of the poem that survive abound in verbal echoes of the language of Latin ritual. Many of these echoes, in turn, bear a striking resemblance to turns of phrase in the other languages of ancient Italy, including Oscan, Umbrian, and Etruscan, and therefore suggest that the diction of the Annals owes much to a ritual tradition common to the speakers of these languages. Moreover, some of the recognizably Greek elements of the Annals were borrowed by the cultures of ancient Italy long before Ennius and were so nativized that the poet and his audience would have perceived them as Italic. Even obvious allusions to the Homeric poems are colored by references to Italic ritual. These traditional ritual elements not only generate powerful Italic resonances for the poem, but they also invite a comparison between their original context and their poetic context in a manner similar to the allusions to archaic Greek poetry in the work of Hellenistic Greek poets such as Callimachus.
An examination of the use of Italic ritual language in the Annals, therefore, uncovers layers of meaning that were hitherto lost to a modern audience and reveal a subtle and artfully constructed poem that deserves attention in its own right rather than as a single, albeit important, step in the adoption of Greek literature by Roman authors that culminates in Vergil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Although the importance of the adoption the Greek hexameter by Ennius into Latin for the Annals cannot be overstated, the contribution of the cultures of ancient Italy to the poetry of Ennius has been underestimated or at least unconfirmed. What is more, the hybrid nature of the poem also exposes the multicultural and multivalent roots of the western poetic tradition that looks back not only to the Greek but also to the Latin epic tradition that was profoundly influenced by the Annals of Quintus Ennius.
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Greek Attic vases are regarded as one of the best-known archaeological artefacts. Most of the time, these artefacts are addressed in a canonical way, even though many of them seem to present a genuine nature. For instance, the famous but unusual Eurymedon Vase is a paradigmatic example of such an affirmation, as its iconographic program embodies a unique but exemplary representation of ancient Greek politics on ethnic dominancy. The body of the vase depicts an Oriental archer about to be submitted by a Greek-like man. Moreover, this submission acquires not only a political dimension but also a personal and bodily one, as it is going to be perpetrated through rape.

This paper aims to study the way Eurymedon Vase may help to understand ancient Greek biopolitics, especially concerning the ideas of ethnicity, sex and the submission of “the othered”. In order to do that, Foucault’s idea of Biopower, Dover’s and Meyer’s queer approach to Greek vases and Jasmin Pjuar’s views on the historical domination of “the oriental other” will be taken into account to provide an appealing analysis of the iconographic and epigraphic programs of this vase. What is more, this archaeological object will be studied taking into consideration in every moment its hypothetical immediate context of usability, as there is no sense in arguing about the social implications of an object without really taking into account how its original users interacted with it, and the possible impressions derived from that interaction.

Durante los dos últimos siglos, los vasos áticos y su producción han sido abordados de manera intensiva desde la arqueología y la historia del arte a través del estudio del material cerámico (Rodríguez Pérez y Mannack, 2019). La filología clásica se ha mantenido tradicionalmente como una disciplina distante al estudio de estas producciones, pese a poder aportar información de gran valor a este campo. El epigrama Κάμινος de Pseudo-Heródoto es un magnífico ejemplo de dicha afirmación. Habiéndonos llegado a la actualidad como parte de la obra Vita Homeri de Pseudo-Heródoto (s. II-III d. C), esta composición articula un canto que, supuestamente, Homero llevaría a cabo ante unos alfareros de Samos (Geddes, 1878). En este marco literario, el autor hace referencia al proceso real de producción de estos vasos, indicando explícitamente cada uno de los pasos seguidos e incidiendo en las dificultades a las que los alfareros se enfrentaban (Noble, 1988). Además, en él aparecen nombradas tipologías cerámicas infrarrepresentadas en la literatura. En otras palabras, Κάμινος se configura como un documento clave para el estudio filológico y arqueológico de las producciones cerámicas áticas, y es por ello que una puesta en valor de este poema parece estar más que justificada.

El objetivo de esta comunicación es llevar a cabo una propuesta de traducción al castellano del aún no traducido epigrama de Pseudo-Heródoto, a la vez que se realiza un estudio filológico-arqueológico sobre su contenido. Con este fin, se ha recurrido, en primer lugar, a los manuscritos “originales”, así como a traducciones de estos a otros idiomas europeos (Hermann, 1916; Evelyn-White, 1936). En segundo lugar, se ha estudiado la literatura existente sobre la presente cuestión (ej. Geddes, 1878) que, finalmente, se ha contrastado con los estudios realizados sobre las producciones y tipologías de la cerámica griega (Noble, 1988; et alia).

The English city of Bath, declared World Heritage Site in 1987, was founded by the Roman Empire as a spa sanctuary under the name of Aquae Sulis. Since then, Bath has always been configured around its classical ruins and its thermal waters, as it has been illustrated in a wide range of literary works from all periods. The aim of this study is to analyse whether literature can be considered a reliable source for the preservation, dissemination and educational outreach of heritage, focusing mainly on the British archaeological site of Aquae Sulis at Bath. In order to achieve this, there has been carried out, in the first place, both archive and field work to gather information on the material record of the site, its development, its historical context and related literary works. Secondly, it has been researched on the existing scholarship about the connection between literature and archaeological methods for heritage preservation. Finally, a set of literary works on Bath’s legacy has been contrasted with the material evidence. The result of this study concludes that a great part of the analysed literary sources presents Aquae Sulis’ remains accordingly to the archaeological record. Moreover, some of them seem to help to make sense of certain parts of Bath’s heritage, while other literary works have turned to be essential to reconstruct what is missing. On this basis, it can be concluded that literature is a compelling complementary source for tangible heritage preservation, even entailing an interesting way to bring heritage into the classroom.

Pottery is one of the few cultural expressions shared by all past and present human cultures. History and culture classes tend to present a traditional text-driven approach that, albeit useful to present basic concepts, sometimes may result demotivating for students, preventing them from acquiring knowledge. To solve this issue, modern educational theories put forward the promotion of more practical and inductive teaching methods that, applied to humanistic subjects, may result in the teaching of history and culture by making use of the materiality from the past. This paper aims to present through practical examples the many benefits of including ancient ceramics as a practical teaching resource in either history, culture or art classes. Decorated ceramics, especially in the Ancient Mediterranean, tended to vividly depict the cultural practices, beliefs, literary works or historical passages of the people who created and received them. Moreover, from protohistoric times to the Middle Ages, these types of artefacts have shared many links between western and eastern Mediterranean cultures, until the extent that ancient indigenous pottery, classical vases and medieval ceramics from both the Iberian and Anatolian peninsulas represented similar realities.

Hence, in this paper we will present, in the first place, a brief theoretical background of some archaeological-driven educational approaches; and, secondly, we will give some notes regarding the historical, cultural and artistic value of Mediterranean ancient pottery. We will dedicate the final part of the presentation to look at specific practical examples of implementing ancient ceramics into three different sets of lessons: the role of women in ancient Iberia and Anatolia, Greek and Roman universal literature, and Islamic art in the medieval Mediterranean. As a result, we will prove that ancient pottery may help teachers to make their history, art or literature lessons more complete, dynamic and appealing for students.

Este libro contiene los resúmenes de las comunicaciones presentadas en el X Congreso Nacional Ganimedes. La veracidad y originalidad de cada uno de ellos es responsabilidad de sus autores. El comité Organizador del Congreso se reserva el derecho de alterar el formato de los textos (nunca el contenido) siempre que sea necesario a fin de unificar el estilo de este libro de resúmenes. Este libro ha sido editado, revisado y maquetado por el Comité Organizador en Granada, a 22 de febrero de 2022.