Otium et Negotium in Vesuvius' Shadow - Monday 5th August 2013 at the British Academy in London

Otium et Negotium in Vesuvius’ Shadow: a colloquium on latest research trends on economy and culture of Roman villas

Monday 5 August 2013 — 9:30 until noon  and  2:00 until 4:30 — The British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace

Purposefully coinciding with the British Museum’s current exhibition Life and Death: Pompeii and Herculaneum, this one-day colloquium will offer a series of lectures, updates on hows and whys pertaining to the study of life in classical Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other sites in the bay of Naples.

Brigham Young University's London Centre hosts a colloquium of scholars from institutions in Italy, the UK, and the US. It is structured in three parts — intellectual life as shown in the Herculaneum papyri and other written sources, new scholarly insights into the economy of Roman villas (especially their exploitation and management of land and marine resources), and how understanding Roman villa culture has mattered and matters now.

Admission is free. Generous funding from Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah, USA), its College of Humanities and the London Centre, and from the Neal A. Maxwell Institute of Religious Scholarship provides for this opportunity. Support also from the Friends of Herculaneum Society.

Program

Roger T. Macfarlane, Brigham Young University
  Introduction and Overview: If Horace had heard a lecture at the Villa of the Papyri, should we care?

Gianluca Del Mastro, Università degli Studi Federico II di Napoli
  Herculaneum Papyri now: updates and perspectives

Richard Janko, University of Michigan
  Herculaneum Papyrology, an intense manifestation of intellectual humanism

Robyn J. Veal, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge
  Provisioning the Roman villa: management of land resources to support urban and country villas

Annalisa Marzano, University of Reading
  The maritime villas of Campania: conspicuous consumption and beyond

Girolamo F. De Simone, University of Oxford / The Apolline Project
  Beyond Pompeii and Herculaneum: life on the "dark side" of Vesuvius

Shelley Hales, University of Bristol
  Why have our forebears cared at all about Herculaneum, and how did they manifest it?

Robert Fowler, University of Bristol / Friends of Herculaneum Society
  Why does an audience of the 21st century need to know anything about Herculaneum?