This conference, organised by BA Post-doc Alessandra Tafaro, is part of the City of Rome programme, an intensive eight-week residential course coordinated by Dr. Christopher Stephen Siwicki, designed for postgraduates from selected British partner universities. The programme is aimed at students at the Master’s or early Doctoral level studying classical archaeology, art history, ancient history, and the transformation of antiquity in the Middle Ages and modern period.
See the full programme of City of Rome here:
https://bsr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/CityofRomeProgramme2025_PDF.pdf
‘What’s in a name? The politics of anonymity and pseudonymity: cross-disciplinary approaches’ will address the width of theoretical and methodological perspectives on anonymous and pseudonymous authorship across literary and epigraphic discourses, and its shifting meaning in contemporary literary and performative art contexts. In particular, it will seek to tackle the following questions:
What are politics and poetics of anonymity/pseudonymity? How does anonymous/pseudonymous authorship challenge our understanding of poetic and political discourses in the ancient world? How does anonymity subvert critical notions of elite and popular, literary and sub-literary that dominate scholarly perspectives on ancient literary and epigraphic cultures?
This conference will also explore the gendered dimensions of anonymity, by interrogating the political assumptions at play in the still common practice of interpreting female writers as male authors in disguise.
A concluding performance ‘Taci, Anzi Parla! Performing Anonymity’ by the artist Eloise Fornieles will test out the paradoxical tensions between pseudonymity, anonymity and authorship in performative arts, promoting new ways into understanding the negotiations of (anonymous) authorship in contemporary discourses.
Provisional programme of the day
10.30-11.00 Registration and Coffee
11.00-11.10 Introductory remarks
11.10-12.10 Keynote address – Tom Geue, The Australian National University: “The Signature of Slavery” (online)
12.10-12.40 Robin Kreutel, Humboldt University: “When the auctor became an author – rethinking Latin discourses of authorship” (in person)
12.40-13.10 Bobby Xinyue, King’s College London: “Authors, Collaborators, Caesars”
13.10-14.30 Lunch break
14.30-15.00 Sandro la Barbera, “A poetics of invisibility. Concealed authorship in Latin pseudepigrapha“, University of Trento (in person)
15.00-15.30 Lorenzo Calvelli, Ca’ Foscari University: “Detecting epigraphic forgeries: past and present perspectives” (in person)
15.30-16.00 Coffee Break
16.00-16.30 Sarah Levin-Richardson, University of Washington: “Gender and Anonymity in Pompeian Graffiti” (online)
16.30-17.00 Alessandra Tafaro, British School at Rome: “Saturni aurea saecla quis requirat? / sunt haec gemmea, sed Neroniana – inscribing anonymity across Pompeii’s urban fabrics” (in person)
17.00-17.30 Coffee Break
17.30-18.00 Rachele Gusella and Anne Peeters, Vrije Universiteit Brussel: “Poetic Echoes in the Streets: Exploring Contemporary Street Poetry in Rome” (in person)
18.00-18.30 Eloise Fornieles, British School at Rome: “Taci, Anzi Parla: Performing Anonymity” (in person)
18.30-19.30 Wine Reception
19.30 Delegate’s Dinner
More info:
https://bsr.ac.uk/city-of-rome-conference-whats-in-a-name-the-politics-of-anonymity-and-pseudonymity-crossdisciplinary-approaches/
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