Keynote Event

the conference

the department

university of toronto classics home page

n e g o t i a t i n g i d e o l o g i e s n e g o t i a t i n g i d e o l o g i e s
n e g o t i a t i n g i d e o l o g i e s

an interdisciplinary conference exploring the culture of antiquity

the department of classics university of toronto

o c t o b e r 1 5 - 1 7 1 9 9 9

k e y n o t e e v e n t w i t h

Professor Josiah Ober (Princeton)
and
Professor Matthew Roller (Johns Hopkins)

We are planning these talks around a series of lectures and discussions that will address some of the problems associated with the concept of ideology and its relation to social practice and representations. The keynote event will provide a dynamic forum in which to discuss the different roles that ideology can play in our efforts to understand the past. We plan to make this event a productive opportunity to develop theoretically engaged methods of looking at ancient culture.

Professor Ober's paper, Taking Positions and Making Points: Tyrant-killing and Stasis in Athenian Political Discourse and Iconography, builds upon his recent book (Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule. Princeton University Press: Princeton 1998) and explores the contested relation between different social groups through the discourse of the "tyrant."

Professor Roller's paper is tentatively entitled, Is the Emperor a 'Father' or a 'Master'? Aristocratic Ideology and Imperial Authority in the Early Roman Empire. It explores the deployment of "master" (in relation to slaves) and "father" (in relation to children) as competing paradigms for the authority of the emperor (also late-republican warlords) in relation to other Romans, particularly aristocrats.