On Wednesday 5 November, the UKRI-funded Aristoteles Pezographos project and the Durham Centre for Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (DCAMP) will be hosting a workshop dedicated to the Atlantis story in Plato’s works at Grey College, Durham University.
We shall be asking whether Plato intended to complete the Critias and compose a Hermocrates, or whether he left the “trilogy” beginning with Timaeus purposively unfinished. Several questions will be investigated: What would Zeus’ speech have contained? Why did Plato choose Hermocrates as a guest? What is the supposed date at which the dialogues were set? Who is the “fourth man”? Critical approaches to the material will be interdisciplinary: literary, philosophical, historical, philological, and even creative.
The workshop is in-person and hybrid. If you are planning to attend, could you please email Edith Hall (edith.hall@durham.ac.uk) indicating your intent by, at the latest, Monday 3 November at 12noon GMT? Those planning to attend in person should also indicate whether they would like to go to dinner. Hybrid attendees will receive a Teams link prior to the start of the workshop.
Workshop: Atlantian Adventures
Date: Wednesday 5 November
Time: 10am – 6pm GMT
Location: Pennington Room, Grey College
South Rd, Durham DH1 3LG
Schedule (all times GMT):
10:00 Chair: Edith Hall (Durham)
Phil Horky (Durham): ‘Plato’s Hermocrates and Hermocrates of Syracuse’
10:45 Chair: Judy Quinn (Durham)
Federico Petrucci (Turin): ‘The Philosophical Function of the Critias itself with respect to the Timaeus‘
11:30 Coffee
12:00 Chair: Giulia Bernardini (Durham)
Christopher Gill (Exeter): Keynote: ‘Why Plato did not Finish the Atlantis story – Eco-utopia and Political Vision’
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Chair: Wenhao Yang (Durham)
Thibaut Lejeune (Leuven): ‘Plato’s Golden Mean: Strategic Silence in the Critias and the Limits of Speech in the Hermocrates‘
14:45 Chair: Phillip Horky (Durham)
Eran Almagor (Independent Scholar): ‘Unfinished Projects: Plato’s Critias in Plutarch’s Solon’
15:30 Chair: George Gazis (Durham)
Azzan Yadin-Israel (Rutgers): ‘Is the Atlantis Story an Interpolation?’
16:15 Tea
16:45 Chair: Federico Petrucci (Turin)
Alessandro Vatri, George Gazis and Edith Hall (Durham): ‘What Might Plato’s Zeus Have Said?’
17:30 General Discussion chaired by Harold Tarrant (Newcastle Australia)
18:00 Wine/Pub
19:30 Dinner (for in-person participants)