Fact & Fiction: Deceptive Discourse in Ancient Epic
When and Where
Description
Fact & Fiction: Deceptive Discourse in Ancient Epic
Organized by Melissande Tomcik
April 5 & 6, 2024
Accuracy and objectivity of information are a major concern of modern day society, but tendentious renderings of situations, false promises and other rhetorical devices mixing fact and fiction in various proportions are not new. Disinformation features prominently in ancient literature often often plays an important role in the narrative plot, for instance, Odysseus’ lying tales in the Odyssey and Sinon’s false explanation for the Trojan horse in the Aeneid.
Taking a step back from modern realities, the aim of this conference is to investigate deception and manipulation through speech in ancient epic, a narrative genre whose scope allows for events to unfold and be recounted by the characters within the text itself. These subjective retellings almost always entail some kind of deformation depending on the speaker’s biases and ambitions.
Please join us to explore the dynamics of fact and fiction in deceptive speeches!
Speakers & Topics
Jonathan Burgess (University of Toronto): The Lying Travelers at Ithaca Motif
Hilary Bouxsein (St. Olaf College): “As he spoke he made many falsehoods similar to realities”: Odysseus and Penelope in Odyssey 19 and 23
David Jacks II (University of Toronto): You Can’t Handle the Truth: Deceptive Speech and Ulterior Motives in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes
Brian McPhee (Durham University): Inferring Deception in Character-Text in Apollonius’ Argonautica
Christopher Forstall (Mt. Allison University) & Berenice Verhelst (University of Amsterdam): A Gospel in the Language of Lies. Deceptive Lines from Homer in Eudocia’s Homerocentones
Lorenza Bennardo (University of Toronto): Fake News in Ancient Commentaries on Virgil’s Aeneid
Bartłomiej Bednarek (University of Warsaw): Dionysian Illusion and Epic Fiction in Acoetes’ Speech (Ovid’s Metamorphoses)
Francesca Econimo (Trinity College Dublin): Metamorphoses of a Story: Truth and Distortion in Hypsipyle’s Narration (Statius, Thebaid 4-6)
Neil Bernstein (Ohio University): Fake News in Lucan and Silius
Melissande Tomcik (University of Toronto): Fake News! Counterfactual Interpretation of Evidence in Flavian Epic
Felix Budelmann (University of Groningen): Dreams, Consciousness and Fiction in Greek and Roman Epic
To register, contact melissande.tomcik@utoronto.ca