SYMPOSIUM: Latinity and Alterity in the Early Modern Period

Convenor: Associate Professor Yasmin Haskell, Cassamarca Associate Professor of Latin Humanism Classics and Ancient History, UWA

Confirmed participants: Professor Ann Moss (University of Durham) Dr Andrew Laird (University of Warwick) Professor Antonio Iurilli (Palermo University) Dr Letizia Panizza (Royal Holloway, London) Professor Daniel Stolzenberg (Max Planck Institute, Berlin) Professor Dr Marc Laureys (Bonn University) Dr Christopher Allen (National Art School, Sydney) Dr Juanita Ruys (University of Sydney) Dr Farzad Sharifian (University of WA) Alexandra Mariano (University of Algarve) Professor Dr. Martha Patricia Irigoyen Troconis (Mexico)

In the final chapter of her "Latin or the Empire of a Sign From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries", Françoise Waquet seeks to explode the recurring occidental dream of Latin as 'a solution to the problem of communication between all the peoples of the earth'. She reminds us that, over the centuries, Latin 'had acquired real claims to universality by being the language of three great powers, political, religious and intellectual, which had ruled over immense territories: the Roman Empire, the Church, the Republic of Letters' (trans. John Howe (Verso, London, 2001), p. 257). In the early modern period, the universality and neutrality of Latin seemed to promise its users full citizenship of the only world that mattered, the reborn classical world -- thus the favoured status of the ancient language as an educational and diplomatic medium at the frontiers of Europe (e.g. Sweden, Poland, Russia).

But how did Latin fare in the New World in the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries, in cultural contexts radically alien from its Roman home? While the most potent myths of ancient Rome were those of migration and colonisation, her 'cultural imperialism' was predicated on compromise and inclusivity. Romulus' city was, after all, a city of asylum-seekers, and Rome's greatest poet, Virgil, cheerfully acknowledged the superiority of Greece in matters of culture. How did early modern Europeans gaze on the Asian, American, and African Other through the lens of Latin? To what extent did the missionaries of the Society of Jesus, for example, offload the cultural baggage of a Latin humanist education when they disembarked in the Americas and the Far East? Would Latin culture in the East and South prove as much an instrument of domination and control as Waquet represents it in the West? And were non-European writers of Latin any more or less divided from themselves and their cultures than contemporary Europeans who eschewed their various vernaculars?

Last but not least, what of female Latinists in the early modern period? Waquet suggests that 'where Latin was concerned, women were treated in much the same way as the working classes and South American Indians' - in short, excluded. Indeed, Latin was sometimes cast as a veil over indelicate subject matter precisely to protect the feelings and morals of women. And yet, from the Renaissance well into the twentieth century, vigorous claims have been made for the humanising power of Latin letters. The historical exclusion of women from Latin, then, was tantamount to denying them a share in European personhood. Of course, there have always been notable exceptions to the rule that women couldn't and shouldn't learn Latin. But did the Latin writing of early modern women mitigate, or merely accentuate, their otherness?

The symposium will bring together some of the most exciting and progressive voices in neo-Latin studies, with a view to galvanising interest in this field among younger Australian scholars, and identifying new research possibilities. It is anticipated that the subject will generate lively debate in response to Waquet's controversial, recent book on Latin as the '"European sign" par excellence'.

For further information contact Associate Professor Yasmin Haskell, School Of Humanities, UWA, [email protected]

For other general enquiries contact Institute of Advanced Studies [email protected] Registration form at http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/activities_and_programs/other_activities_and_events