The University of Liverpool is hosting an interesting-looking conference with the title: The Frightful and the Familiar: Exploring the Uncanny in the Ancient World. It looks from the programme (which follows) like a very interesting day for scholars of ancient esotericism.

02/08/2018

The Arthur West Room, 9 Abercromby Square, University of Liverpool

We are delighted to announce the programme for this one-day conference at the University of Liverpool.  The conference will be free to attend, but places must be reserved. Please contact Elaine Sanderson (e.c.sanderson@liverpool.ac.uk) to reserve your place by no later than 25/07/2018.

Programme: 

0945-1000: Registration & Welcome

1000-1100: Signifiers and the Uncanny

Thinking with Monsters

Dr Henry Heitmann-Gordon (LMU Munich)

The Ambiguity of Eleusis in Eleusis: ‘Uncanny Gameplay’ in an ‘Ancient Videogame’

Ross Clare (Liverpool)

1100-1115: Break (Coffee & Refreshments)

1115-1245: Uncanny Figures

Waking Nightmares: Circe and the Uncanny

Katharine Mawford (Manchester)

Lycanthropy in the Ancient World

Jordan Poole (Liverpool)

Medusa’s Gaze and the Uncanny

Ivan Nenchev (Psychiatrische Universitätsklinik der Charité) & Benjamin Wilck (Humbolt)

1245-1345: Lunch

1345-1445: Rites, Rituals, and the Uncanny

Talking Heads: From Familiar Haruspicium to Unfamiliar Necromantia in Seneca’s Thyestes

            Maria Haley (Leeds)

Uncanny Rites: The Syncretism of Magical Practice and Mystery Cults in the Roman Novels

Hannah Burke-Tomlinson (KCL) 

1445-1500: Break (Coffee & Refreshments)

1500-1630: The Uncanny in Epic

Nefas-tic Scenes from a Memory: Remembering Civil War in Lucan’s Bellum Civile

Elaine Sanderson (Liverpool)

Passing to the Unknown: A Lacanian Approach to the Uncanny in Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Dr Eleni Ntanou (Manchester)

Enthusiastic Prophecy and Uncanny Prophets in Ancient Epics and Their Reception

Dr Anactoria Clarke (KCL)