[LCC] CFP: 2011 Lambda Classical Caucus Panel

[John Wood]

Please distribute widely.
Thank you.

*Ancient “Unspeakable Vice” and Modern Pedagogy:*

*Talking about Homosexuality in Classical Antiquity in the 21st Century
Academy*

2011 Annual Meeting of the APA, San Antonio, TX

Sponsored by the Lambda Classical Caucus. Organized by Konstantinos P.
Nikoloutsos (Berea College) and John P. Wood (University of North Carolina
at Greensboro)

In E. M. Foster’s novel *Maurice*, published posthumously in 1971 and turned
into a film in 1987, two young men in early 20th century England, strongly
attracted to each other, attend a class at Cambridge University during which
they translate Plato’s *Symposium*. When a student reaches a passage on
same-sex love, the instructor says in a flat toneless voice: “Omit: a
reference to the unspeakable vice of the Greeks.”

Although a century later the picture has changed and ancient accounts of
homosexuality are more freely discussed in academia, prejudice against and
misinformation on the sexual practices of the Greeks and Romans continue to
persist. The 2011 LCC panel is soliciting papers that discuss the challenges
of teaching such texts at university level and provide feedback on the
responses they provoke among students. Questions that individual papers may
address include but are not limited to the following:

   - What pedagogical methods and interpretive tools (e.g., social theory,
   feminist theory, queer theory, psychoanalytical theory) do we employ in
   teaching what is nowadays considered to be nonnormative sexuality?
   - What are the sources that we regularly use to demonstrate the sexual
   plurality of the ancient world and increase awareness about the
   nonuniversality of modern sexual practices? Are some texts less suitable
   than others? What are the criteria for creating a textual canon, if any
   (e.g., the content of the piece, the complexity of ideas expressed in it,
   its author and genre, the familiarity of the students with it, or simply a
   personal fondness of the instructor for a particular text)?
   - What are the benefits of exposing students to ancient texts that are
   critical of same-sex desire?
   - How do we effectively teach the transition (in terms of both similarity
   and difference) from Greek and Roman sexual ethics to that of late antiquity
   described in the texts of the Church Fathers? How do we incorporate Greek
   and Roman accounts in a syllabus on homosexuality throughout the ages?
   - How can we draw on ancient attitudes to homosexuality to inform modern
   debates on homophobia, xenophobia, racism, and same-sex marriage?



Abstracts of one page in length are due by February 1, 2010. Please do not
send abstracts to the panel organizers. Email them to Nancy Rabinowitz at
nrabinow at hamilton.edu. All abstracts will be refereed anonymously. Questions
can be addressed to Konstantinos P. Nikoloutsos at
Konstantinos_Nikoloutsos at berea.edu.
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