ANANC (the Ancient Novel and Ancient Narrative Community) is happy to invite you to our first Keynote Speaker event on Friday, October 9, at 12:00 pm EST. The event will feature Tim Whitmarsh of Cambridge University, who will be speaking about “Hero and Leander and the Death of the Sign.”
Email ancientnovel.ananc@gmail.com for the Zoom link.
Description of talk: Musaeus’ Hero and Leander is a hybrid between a verse epyllion and a romance, composed in the 5th century CE. One of the questions it raises is why the central scene, over 1/3 of the poem, describes Leander’s seduction of Hero, adapting Achilles Tatius. This paper argues that the poem is unified by the theme of complex semiotics, and Musaeus found in Achilles an extended meditation on the theme of erotic sign-reading.
Note: this is not a Classical Association event – please contact the organisers directly with any enquiries.
