Forgotten Stars: Rediscovering Manilius’ Astronomica


University of Columbia, New York
24-25 October 2008

Co-organised by Katharina Volk (Columbia) and Steven Green (Leeds)
A major international conference on Manilius’ Astronomica, the first of its kind in the Anglophone world, will take place at Columbia University on 24-25 October 2008.

The Astronomica of Manilius is a five-book Stoic didactic poem on astrology which is usually believed to have been composed between c. A.D. 9-16, under Augustus and Tiberius. The poem offers great opportunity for diverse scholarly study, in terms of its genre and intertextuality, its philosophical, intellectual and socio-political background; and yet, but for a few notable exceptions, the poem has been largely ignored, especially by Anglophone scholars, whose silence would suggest compliance with the old-fashioned view that the Astronomica is too difficult to read and digest and/ or full of contradictions and astrological errors and omissions.

The planned conference aims to put this neglected poet firmly back on the scholarly map, and will bring together an international panel of Latinists, historians of science, and reception specialists to approach the author and his work from a variety of different angles.

Further details will appear in due course on the websites of the Classics Departments at the Universities of Columbia and Leeds. There will also be a further announcement to this e-list in due course.

Below is a list of confirmed speakers with provisional paper titles.

Josèphe-Henriette Abry (Lyon)
Cosmos and Imperium: the Excursus of the Astronomica


Elaine Fantham (Princeton/Toronto)
TBA

Monica Gale (Trinity College Dublin)
Digressions, Intertextuality and Ideology in Didactic Poetry: The Case of Manilius

Patrick Glauthier (Columbia)
Economic Metaphors in Manilius

Steven Green (Leeds)
The Poetics and Politics of Horoscopic Failure in Manilius’ Astronomica

Thomas Habinek (University of Southern California)
TBA

Stephan Heilen (University of Illinois)
The Bonicontrius Commentary on Manilius

John Henderson (Cambridge)
TBA

Wolfgang Hübner (Münster)
Tropes and Figures: Manilian Style reflecting Astrological Lore


Duncan Kennedy (Bristol)
Manilius’ Metaphors

Daryn Lehoux (Manchester)
Myth, Math, and Manilius

Wolfgang Mann (Columbia)
The Manuscript Tradition of Manilius

Caroline Stark (Yale)
TBA

James Uden (Columbia)
TBA

Katharina Volk (Columbia)
In Heaven as it is on Earth?: Manilian Self-contradictions