Histoire de la folie

Call for Papers: Fourth Biennial Graduate Student Conference, Mens Insana: Madness in the Ancient World

The UCLA Department of Classics welcomes abstracts for the fourth biennial graduate student conference, Mens Insana: Madness in the Ancient World. From Cassandra’s ecstatic prophecies to Caligula’s crazed reign of terror, madness is something that pervades the Greco-Roman world. This very pervasiveness, in turn, invites a series of questions. First, what was “madness” to the Greeks and Romans? How, in other words, did the Greeks and Romans define and conceptualize what we call “madness”? Second, and more specifically, how was madness depicted in ancient art and literature? Was it always represented in a negative light, as in Sophocles’ Ajax or Seneca’s Medea, or could it also be represented as something more positive? Finally, how do Greco-Roman views of madness conform with or differ from modern views of madness?

Graduate students wishing to present a paper should submit an abstract of 300 words or less to Justin Vorhis by June 15, 2012. Papers should be 15-20 minutes in length. Applicants will be notified of acceptance by July 1, 2012.

The above information as well as additional details are available as a PDF, available here. You can also download the conference poster.

http://www.classics.ucla.edu/mensinsana/papercall.html