[Usyd_Classics_Events] Research Seminar April 20th Rosie Sykes

[Tamara Neal]

Dear Friends of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Sydney,

We are delighted to invite you to the fifth presentation of Semester 1 2026 in our Classics and Ancient History research seminar series.

April 20th Monday 12.15pm
V. Gordon Childe Boardroom (Level 2, Madsen Building)
Chair Prof. Julia Kindt

Rosie Sykes (University of Sydney)

Geographika hypomnemata: performance and the ancient geographical genre.



Zoom link:  https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/j/89574510422



Abstract

Strabo’s Geographika still holds many unanswered questions around its compositional circumstances and editorial status. While it is not the only text from the ancient world to refer to itself as simultaneously syngramma and hypomnemata (traditionally, a ‘completed work’ vs ‘notes’), this ambiguity is among several signals of tension about the Geographika’s status, both in the sense of its state of completion, and what kind of work it was intended as. In an attempt to extend these questions in a fresh direction, I consider the Geographika in relation to the idea of the oral ‘performance’ of geographical information, and the work’s constructed relationship to different modes of transmission. An excerpt from Diodorus Siculus - a vision of geographical theatricality which Strabo reacts against in his own telling of the same story – provides an example of Strabo’s stance towards the oral telling of geographical ‘wonders’, yet isolated examples do not fully capture the complexity of Strabo’s approaches to the dynamics of the written and spoken word.



Bio

Rosie completed her BA and MSt in Classics at the University of Oxford, during which time her main academic interests were Greek tragedy, Homer and historiography. She then trained as a teacher on the PGCE program of King's College London, going on to teach Latin and Greek in a UK school and to work in curriculum design for the Ministry of Education in New Zealand. She continues to teach Latin part-time in a high school while pursuing her PhD at the University of Sydney on animals, the natural world and 'terrestrial history' in Strabo's Geographika.

We look forward to seeing you there.

All the best,

Tamara


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DR TAMARA NEAL FHEA | Lecturer in Ancient Greek (Education Focused) | Academic Advisor
Classics & Ancient History | School of Philosophical & Historical Inquiry | Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
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