Speaker Announcement: “Rethinking Classical Reception” – Montserrat Camps-Gaset

Update: Unfortunately, Dr Montserrat Camps-Gaset is unable to give the following presentation at this year’s BAMC/BCE.

The third plenary to be announced for BAMC/BCE2021 is a keynote presentation titled “Rethinking Classical Reception: Can We Still Learn Something from Antiquity in a Postcolonial World?” with Montserrat Camps-Gaset of the University of Barcelona, Spain.

The BCE/BAMC2021 Organising Committees are currently calling for papers to be presented at the joint event. Submit your abstracts by October 8, 2021 to participate.

To participate in BCE/BAMC2021 as an audience member, please register for the conference via the conference websites. (Registration for either conference will allow delegates to attend sessions in the other.)

The interview will also be available for IAFOR Members to view online. To find out more, please visit the IAFOR Membership page.



Abstract

Over the last few years, academic voices have risen, mainly in English speaking countries, against the reception of the Classics (Greek and Latin languages, literatures and civilization), arguing that the Classics have helped to shape the model of white male supremacy in the West. Looking at Antiquity from a critical anthropological perspective is nothing new and it has already been established that the study of the Ancient Mediterranean must be framed in its proper social context, but new issues about the usefulness of Classical Greek and Latin have been brought forward. The aim of this paper is, on the one hand, to stress the difference between an anthropological approach to the Classics as a part of the past and the way the Classics have been taught and conveyed, that is, “received”, in a traditional western discourse; and on the other, to show that criticism from modern perspectives such as postcolonial and feminist studies is imperative while at the same time show that the Latin and Greek languages can still provide tools to develop critical thinking towards the past but also towards our own position in the Modern World.


Speaker Profile

Montserrat Camps-Gaset

University of Barcelona, Spain

Montserrat Camps-Gaset (Barcelona 1958) graduated in Classical Philology at the University of Barcelona in 1980. Her MA thesis on Maleficent Women in Archaic and Classical Greece won the Faculty prize. In 1985, she read her PhD thesis on Ancient Greek Festivals. In 1982, she also graduated in Theology in Barcelona. In 1989, she became Senior Lecturer at the Barcelona University. In 1992 and 1993, she went to the University of Leipzig thanks to a special development program of the DAAD for East Germany universities.

Apart from Catalan and Spanish, her native tongues, she speaks English, French and German fluently, has a good knowledge of Italian and Modern Greek and a basic level of Russian. Her main interests are Mythology, First Christianism, Early Byzantine authors, and Classical Tradition. Her interests include folklore, women studies and national identity.

She has translated many works from Greek, German and Modern Greek into Catalan. She is currently working on the Catalan edition of Plato’s Laws in four volumes, and on a Catalan version of the Corpus Hermeticum. She has also translated books for children and youngsters from English and German into Catalan and Spanish. In 2013, she taught a Seminar on Literary Translation at the University of Leipzig.

She has published a book in French on Ancient Greek Festivals, and papers on Ancient Greek Religion, Women Studies, Mythology and Early Christianism, as well as Classical Tradition in modern writers. In 1998, she published a book of poetry.

At Barcelona University, she has been Head of the Greek Department (2001-2004) and Dean of the Philological Faculty (2004-2008), and has participated on the University Board for many years. She is a member of several societies for Classical Studies and for Literature, such as the Catalan Pen Club.

Since 2008, she is a member of the CEAT’s Executive Committee. Thinking that academic activity must also include an engagement in communicating with a broader audience, she has undertaken the honour of codirecting the Centre as a new academic challenge for developing its capacity of producing and sharing knowledge.


Posted by IAFOR