Dialogues with the Past: Environmental Humanities and Latin Literature

No place on Earth remains untouched by human activity. Climate change, wildfires, and the over-exploitation of mineral resources are becoming our new reality. The workshop "Dialogues with the Past: Environmental Humanities and Latin Literature" seeks to convene a diverse group of globally recognized and emerging scholars to delve into the interactions between humans and the environment as depicted in Latin Literature, with a focus on authors from the Augustan and Flavian Age. Inspired by the emerging field of ecocriticism, this workshop questions how the study of antiquity can contribute to the expansion of ancient environmental studies, providing insights into contemporary ecological problems.

Participants will present for approximately 30 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of feedback and discussion.

Seats are very limited! Register for this workshop.

Organizers

• Cristiana Roffi (A&S Postdoctoral Fellow, Jackman Humanities Institute)
• Alison Keith (University Professor & Director, Jackman Humanities Institute)

Agenda

25 April 2025

1:00 pm – Welcome
Cristiana Roffi, University of Toronto

Session One: Ecocriticism & Human Emotions
Chair - Alison Keith

• 1:15 pm – Alison Sharrock, “Nothing to do with global heating”?
• 1:45 pm – Q&A
• 2:00 pm – Anne-Sophie Meyer, “Natural Emotions in Lucan’s Civil War”
• 2:30 pm – Q&A
• 2:45 pm – Simona Martorana, “Emotionscape: (Human) Feelings, Landscape,
• and Objects in Seneca’s Troades”
• 3:15 pm – Q&A

26 April 2025

Session Two: Georgics Gardens and Suffering Landscapes
Chair - Cristiana Roffi

• 10:00 am – Donald McCarthy, “Georgics Gardens: Lillies, Poppies, Vervain, and Rosemary in Latin Poetry”
• 10:30 am – Q&A
• 10:45 am – Lorenza Bennardo, “Envious gods and suffering landscapes: a reading of Silius’ and Statius’ plagues”
• 11:15 am – Q&A
• 11:30 am – Francesca Econimo, “Peuce in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica: a natural site of tensions”
• 12:00 pm – Q&A

 12:15 pm – Lunch

Session Three – Ovid and the Natural World (Part I). From Multispecies Storytelling to Mother Nature’s Trope
Chair - Mariapia Pietropaolo

• 14:00 pm – Francesca Martelli, “Multispecies Storytelling in Ovid's Metamorphoses: Partial Relations and the Ontological Turn”
• 14:30 pm – Q&A
• 14:45 pm – Cristiana Roffi, “Alma Tellus. The metaphor of “Mother Earth” in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the contemporary ecological discourse”
• 15:15 pm – Q&A 

15:30 pm – Coffee Break

Session Four – Ovid and the Natural World (Part II). The Role of Nymphs
Chair - Lorenza Bennardo

• 15:45 pm – Mariapia Pietropaolo, “Egeria in the Active Voice”
• 16:15 pm – Q&A
• 16:30 pm – Leah O’Hearn, “Dryope’s Lesson: Pietas as an Ecological Virtue in Ovid’s Metamorphoses”
• 17:05 pm – Q&A

17:15 pm – Concluding Remarks
Alison Keith, University of Toronto

7:30 pm – Dinner for Conference Participants
CIBO Restaurant, 133 Yorkville Ave