# Jackson Colloquium 2025 ## expand\_more Harvard University was pleased to host the 2025 Jackson Colloquium: ## Nationalism, origins, and the politics of Latin literature ### September 19–20, 2025 Free and open to the public. ![Jackson Colloquium poster with wolf sculpture](/sites/g/files/omnuum8266/files/2025-08/Jackson%20Colloquium%202025%20poster%20web_1.png) This international conference has as its objective the critical re-examination of narratives (both ancient and modern) on the origin of Latin literature. Romans told themselves stories about how, when, and why Latin literature came into being, and classical scholars have relied on these ancient aetiologies to construct a model of Latin literary history that has remained largely static since Friedrich Leo’s *Geschichte der römischen Literatur* (1913). As is well known, narratives of the origins of Latin literature are deeply entangled with histories of translation and transference. At times these accounts have suppressed wider and more complex dynamics of inter-cultural and inter-linguistic exchange in the Mediterranean from the fifth to third centuries BCE (*Beyond Greek*, Feeney, 2016). More recent work has highlighted the role of cultural appropriation, plunder, and enslavement in the creation of Latin literature in its original context (e.g., *Empire of Plunder*, eds. Loar, MacDonald, Padilla Peralta, 2018). In turn, these constructed histories of national literatures become a paradigm for the invention of European identity and of a nation-building project that endures to this day (e.g., *Down from Olympus*, Marchand, 1996; *The Culture of Classicism*, Winterer, 2002). Furthermore, the conference seeks to integrate scholarship on Latin literature, its origins and its history in a broader debate about the origins, methods and future directions of humanistic discourse and its institutions (e.g., *Professing Criticism: Essays on the Organization of Literary Studies*, Guillory, 2022). The inquiry at the center of this Jackson Colloquium is an exploration, critique, and expansion of our grasp of the complex relationship between literary beginnings, story-telling, and national origins that not only drives our conceptualization of Latin Literature, but also lies at the heart of its post-classical reception. We seek both to understand the dynamics behind the study of the origins of Roman literature and to provide new paradigms for reading those origins in their social, political, material, and performative contexts. ### Friday, September 19th #### Panel 1: Re-evaluating the origins of Latin literature ##### *Introduction and welcome: 8:45 a.m., Sean Kelly, Dean of Arts and Humanities* ##### **9:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m.** Chair: Leah Kronenberg (Boston University) Tom Biggs (University of St. Andrews), “Accounting for Andronikos: Confected Origins and the Need for Sequence” Jackie Elliott (University of Colorado, Boulder), “Crates of Mallos and the ‘origins’ of Roman scholarship” **Break: 10:20–10:50 a.m.** Chair: Paul Kosmin (Harvard) Paul Johnston (Stanford University), “Cato, Polybius and the Beginnings of Roman Historiography” Rachel Love (Harvard University), “Fabius Noster: Fabius Pictor and the Origins of Roman History” **12:10–12:30 p.m.**: Response and Discussion: Christina Kraus (Yale University) ##### **Lunch break: 12:30–2:00 p.m.** #### Panel 2: Constructing literary origins ##### **2:00–5:30 p.m.** Chair: Leah Whittington (Harvard University) Giuseppe Pezzini (Corpus Christi College, Oxford), “*Aetas Innocentiae*: fighting for the Classics in the late Republic” Stefano Rebeggiani (University of Southern California), “Original sins and origin stories: the beginnings of Roman literature in Silver Latin poetry” **Break: 3:20–3:50 p.m.** Chair: Peter Osorio (Harvard University) Jermaine Bryant (Harvard University), “Reaching for the Universal: Senghor’s Cultural Vision and the Meaning of Latin for Senegal” Constanze Güthenke (Corpus Christi College, Oxford), “The Latin roots of German Hellenism” **5:10–5:30 p.m**.: Response and discussion: John Hamilton (Harvard University) ##### **5:30 p.m.: Reception** ### Saturday, September 20th #### Panel 3: Imagining Rome as a place of origin in the 20th and 21st centuries ##### **9:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m.** Chair: Richard Thomas (Harvard University) Christopher van den Berg (Amherst College), “Platonic Hangups and Platonic Hangovers, or, why we need Roman Rhetoric” Curtis Dozier (Vassar College), “Before the Fall: The Early History of Rome in Contemporary White Nationalist Thought” **Break: 10:20–10:50 a.m.** Chair: Margaret Andrews (Harvard University) Alessandro Barchiesi (New York University), “The *Aeneid*, Italian nationalism, and the search for a pre-Roman Italy” Federico Santangelo (Newcastle University), “April 1910: Talking Rome on the Capitol” **12:10–12:30 p.m.** Response and discussion: Emily Greenwood (Harvard University) ##### **Lunch break: 12:30–2:00 p.m.** #### Panel 4: The Latin language and the discourse of origins ##### **2:00–5:30 p.m.** Chair: Irene Soto Marín (Harvard University) Olivia Elder (Oriel College, Oxford), “Many tongues, one language? Monolingualism, multilingualism and the politics of Romanness” Erika Valdivieso (Yale University), “‘Pariter Latinus et Inca’: The Politics of Quechua Philology” **Break: 3:20–3:50 p.m.** Chair: Kathleen Coleman (Harvard University) Anna Chahoud (Trinity College Dublin), “Revisiting Roman Hellenism” Catherine Conybeare (Bryn Mawr College), “Alfred, Charlemagne, and the importance of Latin” Response: Paul Russell (Harvard University) Closing remarks: Kathleen Coleman --- We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Jackson Fund, the Harvard Department of the Classics, the Provostial Fund for the Arts and Humanities, and the Mahindra Humanities Center. --- Attachments- [ picture\_as\_pdf Jackson Colloquium 2025 poster.pdf ](/sites/g/files/omnuum8266/files/2025-08/Jackson%20Colloquium%202025%20poster.pdf) - [ subject Jackson Colloquium 2025 text only\_1.txt ](/sites/g/files/omnuum8266/files/2025-08/Jackson%20Colloquium%202025%20text%20only_1.txt) ---