Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics Jesse Weiner presented an invited keynote address for a conference titled “Feeling History” on Oct. 28. The conference was held at the University of California, Irvine, and was sponsored by the university’s Group for the Study of Early Cultures.
In “Re-membering the Palatine in Lucan’s Civil War,” Weiner argued that the Roman poet Lucan couples his hostility toward the Julio-Claudian dynasty with an assault on monuments with which the regime attempted to determine and control public memory.
Focusing on the Civil War’s depiction of Augustus’ Palatine Temple of Apollo, Weiner said that “Lucan manipulates monuments and with them the temporal and spatial landscape of Rome.
“Lucan’s depictions of material culture not only undermine Julio-Augustan accounts of history but also provoke major questions about the activities of viewing, reading and remembering,” Weiner added.
