Department Colloquium: Phiroze Vasunia (UCL) “After Babel: Reading the Literatures of the Roman Empire”

Title: After Babel: Reading the Literatures of the Roman Empire

Abstract: When classical scholars talk about Roman literature, they typically mean literature in Latin or Greek.  Many other languages also thrived in the Roman Empire including Aramaic, Demotic, and Hebrew.  How should we study these literatures?  What kind of frame for multilingual literary study is provided by the Roman Empire?  This paper sketches out a preliminary response to these questions by looking at a couple of “Roman” authors (e.g. Longinus, Apuleius) and suggests that we enrich our understanding of Roman literature by reading it in the context of linguistic and literary diversity.

Image: Panel of Jeremiah or Ezra, holding/reading a scroll, in the synagogue at Dura Europos.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons