In honor of Sarah Iles Johnston’s scholarship on ancient myth and religion, we invited you to a two-day colloquium entitled “Myth and Religion: Changing Terrain” to take place at The Ohio State University. Colleagues and students will present papers inspired by and responding to her work in a conversation that represents current trends in the study of ancient religion and myth but also looks forward towards new developments. The multidisciplinary and multicultural nature of the conversation aims to further the productive cross-pollination that Dr. Johnston’s work on religion, myth, and ritual has always embodied and promoted.
Details:
Date: October 28-29, 2022
Where: Columbus, Ohio, The Ohio State University campus
Location: 320 Pomerene Hall (the ‘Ideation Zone’)
Time: 8:30am – 5:00pm
For online viewing (Zoom): register here
FRIDAY
8:30-9:00: Breakfast Snacks & Coffee
9:00-9:45 – Panel 1 (Session Chair: Hugh Urban)
Speaker:
David Frankfurter: “Isis Charms in Christian Egypt: A Challenge to the “Belief” Model of Religion and Narrative”
9:45-11:00 – Panel 2 (Session Chair: Tina Sessa)
Speakers:
Jimmy Wolfe: “Syriac Ghost Stories: Squaring Belief and Experience in the Late Roman Empire”
Warren Huard: “Heracles, Dionysus, and Damascius: Late Platonism and Early Mysteries”
11:00-11:15 – Coffee Break
11:15– 12:30 – Panel 3 (Session Chair: Isaac Weiner)
Speakers:
Kathryn Caliva: “Belief and Believability in Bacchylides 17 and 18”
Carman Romano: “Innovation and Authority in the Orphic Hymns”
12:30-1:30 – Lunch (catered)
1:30-2:45 – Panel 4 (Session Chair: Fritz Graf)
Speakers:
Hanne Eisenfeld: “Models for Joy in Greek Tragedy”
Laurie O’Higgins (remote): “Hesiod's Winter Maiden in the Works and Days”
2:45-3:15 – Coffee Break
3:15-4:30 – Panel 5 (Session Chair: Tom Hawkins)
Speakers:
Max Teitel Paule: “The Mythopoesis of Madeline Miller's Circe”
Jack Emmert: “Superheroes as American Myth”
5:00 – Open Dinner & Bar (reception), in conference space, Pomerene 320
SATURDAY
8:30-9:00 – Breakfast Snacks & Coffee
9:00-10:15 – Panel 1 (Session Chair: Hanne Eisenfeld)
Speakers:
Eva Stehle: “Women's Dancing for Dionysus: Madness or Flow?”
Anton Bierl (remote): “The Poetics of the Sacred in Sappho” (30 minutes)
10:15-10:45 – Coffee Break
10:45-12:00 – Panel 2 (Session Chair: Dorothy Noyes)
Speakers:
Colleen Kron: ““It’s only a myth?!” On the word ‘μῦθος’ in Inscribed Eschatological Epitaphs”
Yannis Tzifopoulos (remote): “Fragments of the Hellenic World: Crete and Macedonia”
12:00-1:00 – Lunch (catered)
1:00-2:15 – Panel 3 (Session Chair: Fritz Graf)
Speakers:
Katie Rask: “Etruscan Funerary Space and Eschatology”
Adria Haluszka: “Cerberus Unbound: Dogs and the Dead in Attraction Spells and Harmful Magic”
2:15-2:45 – Coffee Break
2:45-3:00 – Speaker: Michael Swartz
3:00-3:45 – Speaker: Sarah Iles Johnston
3:45-4:00 – Announcement by Carman Romano and Jimmy Wolfe
4:00-4:05 – Closing remarks by Hanne Eisenfeld and Katie Rask
4:05-5:00 – Optional Lingering & Conversation
All are welcome, both in-person or online. If you plan to attend in-person, please RSVP to Katie Rask (rask.4@osu.edu) so that we can plan accurately for meals catering. This event is open to the public.
About Dr. Johnston’s work: Scholarship on ancient myth, ancient religion, and the complex relationships between the two has burgeoned in recent decades, increasingly focusing on the critical function of myth and the inextricability of narrative from religious practice and belief. The work of Sarah Iles Johnston has been central to these conversations, advancing the terms of the debate and reframing approaches to myth and religion in the ancient Mediterranean. From her most recent monograph, The Story of Myth (2018), which draws on approaches from narratology and media studies to understand how myths promoted belief, to her work on religion and mortality, which includes a publication and reevaluation of a fundamental collection of funerary inscriptions (Ritual Texts for the Afterlife, 2007, with Fritz Graf) and a broader evaluation of the changing nature of death in the ancient world (Restless Dead, 1999), Dr. Johnston’s contributions have insisted on the interdisciplinary and multifaceted nature of ancient religious experience as well as the interrelated roles of ritual and storytelling. Dr. Johnston’s work has also emphasized the multicultural and intercultural nature of ancient religion and made that complex ancient reality more accessible to scholars and students through edited volumes like Religions of the Ancient World (2004) and Mantike: Studies in Ancient Divination (2005). Her work on Hekate and ghosts has found wide appeal among a popular audience and her forthcoming book Gods and Mortals: Ancient Greek Myths for Modern Readers will share the world of Greek and Roman myth with new readers and long-term fans alike.
