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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">Dear all,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">The Critical Antiquities Workshop is back for 2022. Please see the
<b>attached flyer</b> for a schedule of events and abstracts for March-June.<span class="apple-converted-space"> Recordings of past events can also be found on our
<a href="https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/xGpyCD1vlpT58RqVJiW4dW7?domain=youtube.com">YouTube channel</a>. Subscribe to be notified of new videos. You can also follow us on Twitter
<a href="https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/sm96CE8wmrt3ZQLD0HwNl2N?domain=twitter.com">@CritAntiquities</a>. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">In the first workshop of 2022, we are delighted to host Anthony Hooper<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(University of Wollongong) for his paper, ‘Erotic Androgyny and the Priority of the Feminine in Plato’s
<i>Symposium</i>.’ The event will be held on<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b>Thursday, March 24 10-11:30am (Sydney time)</b>. That translates to the following times elsewhere:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">Singapore: Thursday, 7-8:30am<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">Tokyo: Thursday, 8-9:30am<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">Los Angeles: Wednesday, 4-5:30pm<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">Mexico City: Wednesday 5-6:30pm<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt"><span style="color:black">Chicago: Wednesday, 6-7:30pm<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">New York City: Wednesday, 7-8:30pm<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<b><span style="color:black">To receive a Zoom link, please sign up for<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Critical<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Antiquities Network announcements<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/2GnYCGv0oyC1zVkMOtpqCW-?domain=signup.e2ma.net/" title="https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/zeDaCoV1kpfrBPnvyF1CtMk?domain=signup.e2ma.net/"><span style="color:#0563C1">here</span></a>.
If you have already subscribed to the mailing list, you will receive the Zoom link and need not sign up again</span></b><span style="color:black">.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">Here is the abstract:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt">Recent insights regarding the continuing (omni)presence of institutional sexism, and the forceful response of the MeToo movement demand that Classical scholars bring a fresh eye to the pressing issue of the representation
and valuation of women in ancient sources. On first blush, Plato’s <i>Symposium</i> appears unpromising grounds for exploring, let along celebrating women and the feminine. Symposia are traditionally male-dominated spaces, and in Plato’s drinking part women
are dismissed from performing even the minor functions for which they were typically employed – as entertainers and courtesans. Furthermore, each of the early speakers of the dialogue offer phallocentric accounts of
<i>erôs</i>, banishing women from the world of respectable erotics. However, Socrates crashes this ‘sausage party’, granting the feminine a starring fore by offering his own
<i>encomium</i> of love in the voice of a woman, Diotima. The conspicuous inclusion of the feminine comes to a head at 206b1-e5, in her (in)famous gambit regarding possession at 206b1-e5. This passage is striking for prominent inclusion of a panoply of distinctly
<i>feminine</i> sexual imagery, including <i>tiktein</i> (‘giving birth’), <i>kuein</i> (‘pregnancy’),
<i>gennan</i> (‘bearing’), and ‘<i>ôdis</i>’ (‘birth pangs’).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt"> In interpreting this passage, the standard scholarly move has been to read ‘Plato’ here to be appealing to a technical Asclepian doctrine regarding embryology that relegates women merely to receptables
of male seed, systematically minimising their contribution to reproductive processes to nearly nothing. On this reading, this passage represents the apogee of the dismissal of the feminine from erotic discourse in the
<i>Symposium</i>. Against this reading, I seek to re-establish the value, prominence, and
<i>presence</i> of the feminine in this passage. Furthermore, I argue that the treatment of possession here represents one of the few places in the dialogues in which the feminine is given priority over the masculine. Through appealing to female sexual imagery,
I establish that Diotima seeks to re-orient her audience’s conception of possession away from a male mode – concerned with domination, instrumentality, and interchangeability – with a feminine mode of possession – concerned with nurturing, and allowing the
objects of desire to change most basically who one is. The dramatic suggestion that i) all people are androgynous (in a way) and ii) that
<i>ta erotika</i> demands the priority of our feminine part represent significant contributions to discourse regarding the valuation of women in Plato’s dialogues, and the Greek world more generally.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We hope to see you there. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tristan and Ben<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">Tristan Bradshaw</span></b><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB"><br>
Lecturer, School of Liberal Arts | Co-director, Critical Antiquities Network<br>
Faculty of the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities | Building 19 Room 1085</span><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:red;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB"><br>
</span><b><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">University of Wollongong</span></b><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB"> NSW 2522 Australia<br>
<b>T </b>+61 2 4221 3850</span><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:red;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB"><br>
</span><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#0028C9;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">uow.edu.au</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">Honorary Associate</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">The University of Sydney<br>
</span></b><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB"><br>
University of Wollongong CRICOS: 00102E</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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