Miriam Leonard, professor of Greek literature at University College London, will explore modernity, revolution and time as part of the annual Christopher Roberts Lecture series on Friday, Feb. 16, and Saturday, Feb. 17. Presented by the Department of Classical Studies, the Roberts Lecture invites noted scholars to campus to present a lecture containing at least one significant, original finding or thesis not previously presented in public (Saturday) as well as second lecture directed to a wider audience (Friday).
During her visit, Leonard will present the two following lectures:
Classics and the Birth of Modernity
Friday, Feb. 16, 4:30 p.m., Weiss 235
The period of the late 18th century has long been regarded as marking the birth of modernity; it is also a period of intense investment in the classical world. Traditionally, modernity has been contrasted with classicism. In the arts, there was a concerted striving for novelty and the rejection of traditional forms as inadequate and stultifying. Nevertheless, some of the key thinkers of modernity, whose ideas helped not only to delineate but also to shape the experience of living in the late 18th and 19th centuries, were heavily indebted to the ideas and cultures of classical antiquity. This lecture will explore this paradox.
Time and Revolution
Saturday, Feb. 17, 4 p.m., Weiss 235
What is the time of revolution? Revolutions are intimately bound up with our conceptions of temporality. We use phrases like "since the French Revolution" as a shorthand for discussing modernity. Yet events like the French Revolution are marked by a complex temporality. Using the lens of the contrasting accounts of Hannah Arendt and Karl Marx, this lecture will look at the repeated reference to antiquity in the French Revolution.
Published February 13, 2018