Columbia University Ancient Mediterranean Graduate Student Conference

The World Upside-Down: Absurdities, Inversions, and Alternate Realities

November 1-2 2019

Keynote Speaker:  Patrick R. Crowley (University of Chicago)

This conference is dedicated to representations of alternate realities in ancient drama, painting, and sculpture, to disparate histories and archaeological evidence. Papers will address the motivations behind, and effects of, the absurd, inverted, and alternative and explore the relationships between fact and fiction, order and chaos.

In an era of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ it can seem like no form of media should be entirely trusted. While these issues are a modern problem, exacerbated by the unprecedented rise of social media, evidence from the ancient world produces a similar ‘truthiness’: an upside-down world or alternate reality that is latent, barely below the surface of the present and just beyond the borders of civilization and norms. Unlike utopias, which are placeless or displaced, many of these imagined dystopic or feigned worlds are presented as dangerously close to their contemporaries.

For more details see: https://classicalstudies.org/scs-news/cfp-world-upside-down-columbia-university-graduate-conference