Event Date
Speakers: Professor Bianca Hand; Professor Kathleen N. Cruz; Professor David J. Gundry; and Professor John A. (Jack) Hawkins
Food: free piping hot, fragrant pizza
RSVP Contact: Harvey Loh ([email protected])
Link to Our MEMS Webpage: https://mems.ucdavis.edu/events/mems-club-symposium-day
Description:
We—The Medieval and Early Modern Studies Club at UC Davis—are hosting our very first MEMS Club Symposium Day on March 6th (Friday), from 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM, in Sproul Hall 912. We are organizing a series of interdepartmental, transnational, cross-cultural lectures on the medieval and early modern worlds which will be presented by our four fabulous guest speakers: the renowned Assyriologist-cum-classicist Professor Bianca Hand and the amiable Greco-Roman mythologist-cum-magicologist Professor Kathleen N. Cruz from our Classics Department; the magnanimous Japanologist-cum-polyglot Professor David J. Gundry from our East Asian Languages & Cultures Department; and the distinguished linguist-cum-polyglot Professor John A. (Jack) Hawkins from our Linguistics Department. These riveting lectures are the first exciting installment brought to you—our dear UC Davisians (Aggies)—by our club's everlasting commitment towards forging a borderless cosmopolitan federation of Weltliteratur (world literature) and Weltkultur (world culture) championing the philomathic vigor (好學精神【かうがくせいしん: kōgaku seishin】) and polymathic spirit (博學精神【はくがくせいしん: hakugaku seishin】) of the Renaissance man: a new World Republic of Letters celebrating φιλομάθεια (philomátheia: “the love of learning”) and πολυμάθεια (polymátheia: “the universality of learning”). Professor Hand will treat us with her fascinating research on Assyrian art by highlighting the role of non-Assyrian peoples in Neo-Assyrian art and investigating the use of foreign landscapes to geographically index the "known world" in Sargon II's royal palace at Khorsabad (721 – 705 BCE); Professor Cruz will enchant us by discussing the afterlife of Greco-Roman magic, both in practice and in the literary imagination, in medieval Europe by focusing especially on the reception of the grotesque witch Erictho—featured in the 1st century CE epic, the Bellum Cīvīle (Civil War), written by the Roman poet Lucan—as she gripped medieval audiences from Ireland to Iceland; Professor Gundry will delight us by presenting Ihara Saikaku’s (井原 西鶴) amorous Dionysian writings: The Life of an Amorous Man (好色一代男 Kōshoku Ichidai Otoko), Five Women Who Loved Love (好色五人女 Kōshoku Gonin Onna), The Life of an Amorous Woman (好色一代女 Kōshoku Ichidai Onna), The Great Mirror of Male Love (男色大鑒 Nanshoku Ōkagami), Transmission of The Way of the Warrior (武道傳來記 Budō Denraiki), Tales of Samurai Honor (武家義理物語 Buke Giri Monogatari), etc.; and Professor Hawkins will thrill us at the end by presenting his "The Medieval Origins of Modern English: Some Agreements and Disagreements in Current Research" through his "medieval and early modern" lecturing style of distributing detailed handouts without relying on PowerPoint slides. Come and have fun with us while savoring free hot, fragrant pizza as we chat and get to know one another in this friendly colloquium of cordial scholars. We encourage you to bring plenty of questions for our amiable speakers who would be very happy to answer them and discover new horizons of knowledge with you. If you are interested in attending, please email Harvey (club president) at [email protected] to RSVP as we need to determine precisely how many boxes of piping hot, fragrant pizza to order in advance. The more the merrier! Officially, our guest lectures end at 5:00 PM and everyone may leave then. 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM is our optional chit chat session and cleanup hour. Please feel free to stay after the event to mingle with everyone. We hope to see you there! Ἐλπίζομεν ἐκεῖ ὑμᾶς ὄψεσθαι! Spērāmus ibi vōs vīsūrōs esse! Wir hoffen, Sie dort zu sehen! 朢於彼所見諸君。彼所【かしこ】にて諸君【もろきみ】を見【み】ることを朢【のぞ】まむ。