[Usyd_Classics_Events] CAH Seminar 12th October Bob Cowan

[Tamara Neal]

 Dear Friends of Classics and Ancient History,

We are delighted to invite you to the fifth – and penultimate – presentation of Semester 2, 2026 in our Classics and Ancient History research seminar series.

Date (Monday, 12.15pm UTC+11)

V. Gordon Childe Boardroom, Madsen Building Level 2.

Zoom link: https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/j/81493879684

Chair: Paul Roche



Associate Professor Bob Cowan: Not Hector but Hector’s body: embodiment, identity, and anagnorisis in Republican Tragedy

Abstract
The centrality of the body and its constructions in Attic and Senecan tragedy has long been widely recognized, and its significance in Ennian tragedy recently explored, with a particular focus on mind-body dualism, embodiment, fragmentation, and the body politic. This paper will examine its role in Ennius’ tragic successors, Pacuvius and Accius, including their creative and often polemical reception of these concepts of fragmentation and embodiment in Ennius and his predecessors: Accius’ Atreus kebabs his nephews and his Achilles declares that he is returning, not Hector, but Hector’s body to Priam. The main focus will be on four distinct but overlapping areas, each of which addresses issues of identity: disfigurement, anagnorisis, age, and pain.

Tragic bodies are vulnerable to disfigurement and deformation through mistreatment (Pacuvius’ Antiopa, Accius’ Telephus), old age (Pacuvius’ Telamo and Hesiona; anon. in Acc. Erigona), and the combination of the two (Pacuvius’ Aeetes, Oeneus, Accius’ Telamo). Characters suffer a diminution of status through the degradation of their body, which is represented by a change of costume. The tragic body as an already problematic signifier of status and identity is further problematized by its embodiment in a non-citizen or even enslaved body, that can be raised to the level of heroism or kingship, but also returned to that of its own subaltern status. The slipperiness of this system of signification is further emphasized by the Pacuvius’ and Accius’ remarkable emphasis (even by the standards of tragedy) on anagnorisis. The body is a privileged site for anagnorisis, (e.g. Pac. Niptra), but it is also problematized by the changes wrought through suffering. While it often leads to reunion and reconciliation, it can also lead to violence and kin-killing (e.g. Acc. Epigoni) Finally, pain is a site of conflict between mind and body, and one which challenges the subject’s status as a Roman man demonstrating appropriate constantia.


 Biography

Robert Cowan is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Sydney, having previously held posts at the Universities of Exeter, Bristol, and Oxford. His research ranges over much of Greek and Latin literature, with a particular focus on Roman epic and satire, and Greek and Roman drama. He has published over eighty articles on more than twenty-five authors, from Homer to Luxorius, as well as ancient graffiti, the politics of Graeco-Roman tragedy, personal religion in Old Comedy, and the operatic reception of Greek tragedy. He is interested in a range of modern theories (especially narratology, gender studies, and ecocriticism) and traditional approaches, but especially in the intersection of the two.



We look forward to seeing you.

Tamara


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DR TAMARA NEAL FHEA | Senior Lecturer in Ancient Greek (Education Focused) | Academic Advisor | Accredited University-wide Peer Reviewer of Teaching
President Classical Association of NSW<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/OLZhCgZ0N1iN54njXuNfkLs4Ku0c?domain=classics.org.au>
Classics & Ancient History | School of Humanities | Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
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