[Usyd_Classics_Events] Critical Antiquities Workshop #2, 2022 Victoria Wohl April 20

[Ben Brown]

Dear all,

Next week at the Critical Antiquities Workshop, we have the great pleasure of hosting

Victoria Wohl (University of Toronto)

who will present her paper

‘Autobiography of a Daimon.’

Abstract

Empedocles’ Purifications begins with an exceptional statement. Greeting his fellow citizens of Acragas he proclaims “I come to you, an immortal god, no longer mortal” (B112.4 KA). He goes on to tell of his thirty-thousand year exile as a “daimon,” a narrative likewise recounted in the first person. This extraordinary first-person narrative invites us to read the poem as an autobiography in the root sense of the word, the written account (graphē) of the life (bios) of a self (autos). Empedocles’ philosophy explodes each component of the word and scrambles the relation among them. Empedocles’ cosmos is composed of four “roots” (earth, water, fire, and air) that combine and separate continually under the alternating force of Love and Strife. This system of elemental transformation destabilizes the autos and reconfigures the metaphysical syntax of autobiography: in place of a masterful self that rises above life to write it, in Empedocles self, life, and writing coexist in a dynamic assemblage in which each is equally material and equally alive. Taking his poem as an example of what Deleuze and Guattari call a “rhizomatic” text, my paper examines Empedocles’ “radical” experiment in materialist poetics and the paradoxes it produces. His wildly innovative poetic style, I propose, enacts the vibrant ontology of the roots as they live out their “unstable life”  (ou …empedos aiōn, B17.11) but also indicates the limits of his materialist project, as Empedocles himself – the author as stabilizing point of origin – is figured as the one exception to Empedoclean ontology.

The event will be held on Wednesday, April 20 10-11:30am (Sydney time, UTC+11). That translates to the following times elsewhere:

Singapore: Wednesday, April 20 8-9:30am
Tokyo: Wednesday, April 20 9-10:30am
Los Angeles: Tuesday, April 19 5-6:30pm
Mexico City: Tuesday, April 19 7-8:30pm
Chicago: Tuesday, April 19 7-8:30pm
New York City: Tuesday, April 19 8-9:30pm

To receive a Zoom link, please sign up for Critical Antiquities Network announcements here<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/zux2CWLVXkUj65219s6n48X?domain=signup.e2ma.net>. If you have already subscribed to the mailing list, you will receive the Zoom link and need not sign up again.


We would be delighted to see you there,



Ben and Tristan


DR BEN BROWN | Classics and Ancient History | School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry (SOPHI)
School Undergraduate Curriculum Coordinator (SOPHI)
School BAS Coordinator (SOPHI)
Research Seminar Coordinator (CAH)
Co-director Critical Antiquities Network
THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY NSW 2006
Ph.: 9351 8983; Office: Main Quad J6.07
E benjamin.brown at sydney.edu.au<mailto:benjamin.brown at sydney.edu.au> | W https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/njE5CXLW2mUn4X1l5cVo73r?domain=sydney.edu.au

Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral
[signature_2450957005]
[A picture containing logo  Description automatically generated]<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/h81UCYW8Noc3DLQK1F9N2Ra?domain=bmcr.brynmawr.edu>

CRICOS 00026A
This email plus any attachments to it are confidential. Any unauthorised use is strictly prohibited. If you receive this email in error, please delete it and any attachments.

Please think of our environment and only print this e-mail if necessary.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman.sydney.edu.au/mailman/private/usyd_classics_events/attachments/20220412/98421266/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 43687 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <https://mailman.sydney.edu.au/mailman/private/usyd_classics_events/attachments/20220412/98421266/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.png
Type: image/png
Size: 271943 bytes
Desc: image002.png
URL: <https://mailman.sydney.edu.au/mailman/private/usyd_classics_events/attachments/20220412/98421266/attachment-0003.png>