CALL FOR PAPERS
Vergil Week 2015 Symposium at Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio)
“The Fall of Troy in Vergil’s Aeneid “
Friday 24 April 2015

The Greek conquest of the city of Troy is one of the most powerful and haunting legends from antiquity. The narratives of the victors’ brutality, the tragic dignity of the captive Trojan women, and the smoldering ruins of the once-great city of Priam have inspired literature and the arts for thousands of years. Vergil’s account of the Fall of Troy in Book Two of the Aeneid remains preeminent among narratives of the last day of Troy because we hear of the catastrophic events from Aeneas, a main participant in the action, and the character who unites the Homeric Greek tradition with an Italian foundation tradition. Book Two, moreover, includes some of the most important characters, unforgettable images, famous episodes and memorable lines in the entire epic: the Trojan horse, Neoptolemus and the killing of Priam and his son, Aeneas carrying his father on his shoulders, the ghost of Creusa…

This year during the annual Vergil Week celebrations on the campus of Case Western Reserve University, the Department of Classics will hold a symposium that will focus attention on Book Two of the Aeneid. We seek original scholarship that deals with any aspect of Book Two of Vergil’s Aeneid. Scholars might consider Vergil’s account of the Fall of Troy in comparison with what is known from the Greek Epic cycle or Greek tragedy; or address the issue of Aeneas’s narrative as a story-within-a-story; or examine the authenticity of the Helen passage; or Greco-Roman art as inspiration for episodes within the book; or reception of Book Two in post-Classical literature and art…

Authors are invited to send an abstract and a brief cover letter in pdf by e-mail on or before Friday January 16, 2015 to Professor Timothy Wutrich (trw14@cwru.edu). Abstracts should have a title, address an issue or problem relevant to Book Two of the Aeneid; brief bibliography may be submitted on an additional page that bears the abstract title in its header. Abstracts should be no longer than 500 words in length, typed single-space in Times New Roman without authorial identification. Include the title of the paper in the cover letter. Submission of an abstract implies intent to participate in the symposium in Cleveland on Friday 24 April 2015.