FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media contact: Sue Stevens, Senior Media Relations Officer, 817-272-3317, sstevens@uta.edu

ARLINGTON - Modern man's perception of ancient Greece legends is the topic of a free colloquium titled "Tragedy, Cinema and Scandal: Modern Receptions of Ancient Greek Myths" from 2 to 5 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 10, in the Red River Room, E.H. Hereford University Center, 300 W. First Street.

The colloquium focuses on classical reception studies, a rapidly growing sub-field of classical studies that focuses on the relationship between Greco-Roman antiquities and later, post-classical civilizations that adapt and interpret the literature, art and ideas of the ancients. Previous approaches have emphasized the influence of the Greeks and Romans on later civilizations. Classical reception studies shift the emphasis to the resourcefulness of later cultures in appropriating cultural materials for their own diverse purposes.

• 2:15 p.m. Gonda Van Steen is scheduled to lecture on "Bloody (Stage) Business: Matthias Langhoff's Sparagmos of the Bacchae of Euripides." Van Steen holds the N.A. Cassas Chair in Greek Studies at the University of Florida. She has published articles on the reception of Greek tragedy, postwar Greek feminism and on theater and censorship under the Greek military dictatorship of 1967-1974. Van Steen is researching theater productions staged by the political prisoners of the Greek Civil War in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
• 2:45 p.m. Anastasia Bakogianni focuses on modern Greek cinema. Bakogianni has written several articles on the films of Michael Cacoyannis, one of the best-known modern Greek film directors. His film, "The Trojan Women," which starred Katharine Hepburn, is the subject of Bakogianni's talk. She is a postdoctoral fellow at The Open University in Milton Keynes near London.
• 3:45 p.m. Charles C. Chiasson, director of UT Arlington's Classical Studies program, speaks about "Thoroughly Modern Mores in Petersen's Ancient Troy," analyzing the modern social and religious values that characterize Petersen's adaptation of Homer's Iliad.
• 4:15 p.m. Scott Williams of Texas Christian University lectures on "Doubting Telemachus: Generational Perceptions of the Odyssey in Germany after 1945 (or what did you do in the war, Daddy?)" Williams is an associate professor of German and researches modern reception of the classical tradition.

Call 817-272-3216 for more information.

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