> Conferences for 2007-2008

Penn-Leiden Colloquia on Ancient Values V:
VALUING OTHERS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY: June 6-8, 2008
Leiden University, the Netherlands

The Penn-Leiden Colloquia on Ancient Values was established as a biennial venue for investigating the diverse aspects of Greek and Roman values. Each colloquium focuses on a single theme, which participants explore from a diversity of perspectives and disciplines. So far, three volumes have appeared, exploring a personal value, a community value, and the spatial mapping of values respectively: Andreia. Studies in Manliness and Courage in Classical Antiquity, Leiden 2003, Free Speech in Classical, Leiden 2004, City, Countryside, and the Spatial Organization of Value in Classical Antiquity, Leiden 2006. A fourth volume, on 'badness and anti-values' is in preparation.

The topic of the fifth colloquium, to be held at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, June 6-8, 2008, will be:

VALUING OTHERS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

In classical antiquity, a variety of value terms articulate the idea that people 'belong together' or 'relate to each other' as a family, a group, a polis, a community, parts of the cosmos, or just as individual fellow human beings. Which values were thought relevant in this connection? How do these different conceptualizations function? What contexts do they belong in, what contexts do they create? And what effects do they generate, i.e. how do ideas about what we might call 'fellow-feeling', 'empathy', 'humanity', 'unity' and 'citizenship' work in Antiquity to make a group a group or to make people 'do the right thing by each other'?

In this colloquium, our point of departure will not be any one specific value, designated by just one Greek or Roman term. Rather, we will explore the different values, with their different perspectives, that ancient society found useful in thinking about belonging together, social cohesion and unity. Ancient terms that come to mind are, e.g., philanthrôpia, compounds with homo-, such as homoiotropos, homonoia, homophuloi (and other kinship terms); oikeiôsis, philia, sungeneia, koinon, koinônia, sumpatheia, communitas, and humanitas or--from the negative side--the (anti-)-values that produce stasis.

The question of 'valuing others', 'belonging together', 'social cohesion' is highly relevant to contemporary society, where the 'integration', 'adaptation', 'assimilation' and 'participation' of minority groups is a contested issue. What values are used to articulate what binds together our multicultural society? Or is that notion defunct?

For more information, please contact one of the co-organizers:

Professor Ineke Sluiter
Classics Department
University of Leiden
Doelensteeg 16, Johan Huizinga-building
POB 9515
2300 RA Leiden
The Netherlands
Email: i.sluiter@let.leidenuniv.nl
Phone: +31 (71) 527 3311

Professor Ralph M. Rosen
Department of Classical Studies
University of Pennsylvania
202 Logan Hall
Philadelphia PA 19104-6304
USA
Email: rrosen@sas.upenn.edu
Phone: +1 (215) 898 7425