atopia

atopia is an encounter with classical antiquity enacted by a group of classicists, historians, theorists and artists on May 12-13 at the Villa Empain in Brussels. Ancient Greece has long functioned as the supposed origin of “Western civilization,” and as such the common ground of Europe, its colonial territories, and the humanist project. atopia approaches the classical tradition not as a homeland whose borders are secure, but as a constellation, heterogeneous from the outset and open to being recomposed. The Boghossian Foundation’s focus on the dialogue between east and west and the institution as an inhabited home creates conditions for an embodied experience that displaces classicism’s familiar narrative: atopia locates classical antiquity in a space between everywhere and somewhere.

Organized by Brooke Holmes, Isabel Lewis, and Asad Raza with the support of Postclassicisms and the Fondation Boghossian.

With the participation of—

Chiara Cappelletto (Università degli Studi di Milano)
Marco Formisano (Ghent University)
Rodrigo Tadeu Gonçalves (Universidade Federal do Paraná)
Constanze Güthenke (University of Oxford)
Laura Jansen (Bristol University)
Mark Payne (University of Chicago)
Phiroze Vasunia (University College London)

10:00AM-12:00PM
Welcome and Panel One

Laura Jansen (Bristol): “Antiquity without Borders: J. L. Borges”
Constanze Güthenke (Oxford): “The Last Arcadians: Classical Scholars Visiting Greece”

12:00-1:00PM
Preparatory exercises

1:00-2:00PM
Lunch

2:00-3:30PM
Panel Two

Marco Formisano (Ghent): “Transieram: Late Antique Displacement and the ‘Origins’ of Atopia”
Brooke Holmes (Princeton): “Common Denominators: Inhabiting a Cosmopoetic Classical”

3:30-5:00PM
Preparatory exercises

5:00-6:30PM
Panel Three

Rodrigo Tadeu Gonçalves (Paraná): “Anthropophagy in Brazilian Classical Receptions: Oswald de Andrade, Haroldo de Campos and Teatro Oficina”
Mark Payne (Chicago): “Fugitive Pastoral”

10:00AM
Breakfast

11:00-11:30AM
Isabel Lewis, Occasion

11:30-1:00PM
Panel Four

Chiara Cappelletto (Milan): “Classical Antiquity: Something New in the Air”
Phiroze Vasunia (UCL): “At Home, In the World”

1:00-3:00PM
Lunch

3:00-6:00PM
Public Moment