The New Euripides Papyrus (P. Phil.. Nec. 23 v ):
Fresh Perspectives on Tragic Rhetoric

Abstract:

In November 2022, a team of archaeologists from the Egyptian mission at the necropolis of Philadelphia in Egypt unearthed from a tomb a papyrus that contained 97 (to a considerable extent otherwise unattested) lines of Euripides’ fragmentarily preserved tragedies Ino and Polyidos.  The papyrus was edited (in ZPE 230 [2024] 1-40) by Prof. John Gibert and Assistant Prof. Yvona Trnka Amrhein (University of Colorado Boulder), who launched a project towards interpreting this amazing new finding.

The present lecture, which derives from this project, will seek to explore the
debate (agon) in Euripides’ Polyidos preserved in 60 lines of this new papyrus text. It will investigate the structure of this debate, which takes place between King Minos and the seer Polyidos, representing political and intellectual authority, respectively; the agon’s rhetorical sophistication and underlying ideology; and raise questions about the impact of sophia (wisdom) on late fifth-century Athenian thought.

Joshua Billings (Princeton University, Classics)
Friday, April 5, 2024, 11:00 am ET 
509 Hamilton Hall, Department of Classics, 1130 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY, 10027

Joshua Billings (Princeton, Classics) will discuss The Philosophical Stage: Drama and Dialectic in Classical Athens (Princeton UP, 2023)

The Classical Studies Graduate Program is pleased to announce that Professor Joshua Billings (Princeton University), author of The Philosophical Stage: Drama and Dialectic in Classical Athens (Princeton UP, 2021), will be on campus to discuss his book on Friday, April 5, at 11am in Room 607 Hamilton Hall.

This in-person event has an author-meets-reader format. We are circulating in advance "Tragedy in the Philosophical Age of the Greeks" (Introduction) and "Intrigue and Ontology" (Chapter 2) [excluding subsection “Language and Necessity: Sophocles’ Philoctetes (I)”] to prepare for the conversation (please see the selections attached).

After an introduction by Professor Dhananjay Jagannathan (CU Department of Philosophy), Prof. Billings will discuss the book, engage in dialogue with Jake Haagenson (CLST), and answer questions from attendees in a seminar-style format.

A short reception will follow the event. We hope that you can join us!

Denise Demetriou (USCD, Department of History)
Friday, November 10, 2023, 11:00 am ET 
509 Hamilton Hall, Department of Classics, 1130 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY, 10027 

Denise Demetriou (USCD, Department of History) will discuss her book Phoenicians among Others: Why Migrants Mattered in the Ancient Mediterranean (Oxford UP, 2023)

Jessica Lamont (Yale University)
Friday, October 6, 2023, 11:00 am ET 
509 Hamilton Hall, Department of Classics, 1130 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY, 10027

As part of its Classical Dialogues series, the Classical Studies Graduate Program at Columbia University is pleased to welcome Jessica L. Lamont, Assistant Professor of Classics at Yale University

Jessica L. Lamont will discuss her book In Blood and Ashes: Curse Tablets and Binding Spells in Ancient Greece (Oxford UP, 2023), which offers "the first historical study of ancient Greek curse rituals, binding spells, and incantations" while uniting "epigraphic, historical, literary, archaeological, and material evidence to expand understandings of daily life in ancient communities." Introduction by Sailakshmi Ramgopal (Columbia University) with commentary by Giovanni Lovisetto (Columbia University)