Theory After Practice Conference
When and Where
Description
On-line via Zoom: registration information via https://colloquiumforancientrhetoric.scholars.harvard.edu/
Rhetorical theory in Greco-Roman antiquity describes and frequently prescribes rhetorical practice. Nevertheless, the most famous and influential examples of theoretical texts all emerge in the wake of practice. We wish to take a revised and critical look at the relationship between theory and practice. Theory will be treated as an intervention rather than a neutral description. Why was this intervention needed? To what extent is it successful in constraining future practice? What is emphasized or elided within these accounts? What emerges if more practical works are re-read in a light that no longer privileges antecedent or contemporary theoretical works?
Sponsoring Organizations:
Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Toronto; Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto; Department of Classics, Amherst College; Department of Classics, Harvard University; Department of Classics, New York University; Department of Classics, University of Toronto; Department of Political Science, University of Toronto
09 October 2025
17:00-18:30 Keynote Address: R. Webb (Lille), “Ekphrasis in the Progymasmata between theory and practice”
10 October 2025
10:15-12:00 Classical Athens - chair L. Viidebaum (NYU), G. Maltagliati (Cambridge), “Hidden in Theory: Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric and the Ethics of Concealment”, D. Napoli (Cornell), “Rhētorikē, or the Art of Antilogy”
12:00-13:15 Lunch
13:15-15:00 Declamation - chair E. Gunderson (Toronto), M. Roller (Johns Hopkins), “Contesting succession in the Centumviral Court and in declamation”, J. Uden (Yale), “Declamation: Learning to Fail”
15:00-15:15 Coffee break
15:15-17:30 Politics - chair I. Peirano Garrison (Harvard), M. Oliva (Firenze), “How to Write a Rhetorical Handbook? The Challenge of the Literary Genre at the End of the Roman Republic”, J. Harmsworth (Columbia), “From Theory to Punditry: Rhetorical Practice and the Polis in Plutarch’s Political Precepts”
17:30-17:45 Coffee break
17:45-19:15 Keynote Address: J. Porter (Berkeley), “Ancient Rhetorical Criticism as Metacriticism”
11 October 2025
10:15-12:00 Religion - chair E. Gunderson (Toronto), L. Niccolai (Cambridge), “Seeking truthfulness and authority in late antique theological debates”, J. Kee (Harvard), “Panegyric and Ritual, Theory and Theōria: Eustathios of Thessalonike’s Orations for Patriarch Michael III”
12:00-13:15 Lunch
13:15-14:00 Aesthetics - chair N. Janssen (Amherst), G. Gualdi (NYU), “Show Don't Tell: Practicing, Summary with the Ilias Latina”
14:00-14:15 Coffee break
14:15-15:45 Keynote Address: N. Worman (Barnard), “The Politics of Embodiment in Dramatic Theory"