Shane Butler (Johns Hopkins University) will give his talk entitled Cicero’s Regret: Classics and the Atmospheric Turn. The talk will occur on Friday, November 15th, at 4:10 p.m. EDT in Hamilton 603 and on Zoom. A reception will follow.
If you would like to receive a Zoom link, please email Holly Axford (ha2694@columbia.edu). The Zoom link will be circulated the day before the talk.
Title: Cicero’s Regret: Classics and the Atmospheric Turn
Abstract: The Late Antique poet Ausonius tells us, in passing, that the noun paenitentia (regret) is found nowhere in Cicero. The claim is true, and this paper uses it as the starting point for an exploration of the Latin language of affect, with particular attention to impersonal verbs, both of affect and of weather. This will lead us to interlocutors in a wide range of fields: philosophy of mind, affect theory, phenomenology, “atmospherology,” and historical linguistics, among others. It will also shed light on some of Cicero’s most intimate and anguished letters. This paper thereby offers an initial attempt to consider what the “atmospheric turn” can do for Classics, and vice versa.
