As part of the ongoing series of online lectures celebrating the 75^th anniversary of FIEC (full program available at www.fiecnet.org/75-years-fiec), we are pleased to invite you to the next lecture :

Professor Véronique Dasen (University of Fribourg/Switzerland)

Locus Ludi. The Cultural Fabric of Play and Games in Classical Antiquity

October 24^th, 2024, at 7 pm CEST (Central European Summer Time)

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89211771471?pwd=XDRUJLkyoDUOJkGmLAQUWocbcOWG1n.1

Abstract

This lecture will present the results of a five-year research grant supported by the ERC Advanced Grant on ancient ludic culture (# 741520). This project aimed at generating a new vision of ancient Greek and Roman societies thanks to a pluridisciplinary and comparative approach of ancient sources (written, archaeological, iconographic). 1) Texts: reconstructing a lost heritage relating to play and education, ancient games and their rules, based on revising Greek and Latin literary, epigraphic, and papyrological sources, associated with new translations in the form of a commented edition of Pollux, Onomasticon, Book 9 and of an Anthology. 2) Archaeology: Play, identity, sociability and religion, based on the spatial distribution of game remains according to chronology, typology, and context on selected sites, settlements, cemeteries, sanctuaries, creating a reference typology, revising mistaken identifications. The identity of the players and the function of the games were analysed according to context, domestic, public, sacred, funerary, in the search also of the symbolic, religious or identity functions. 3) Iconography: like music and musical instruments, games too were categorized as male or female by the ancients. The task focused on the gender construction of children and youths through play and games, and on the ludic interaction of women and men, comparing Greek and Roman iconography, realities and representations. The lecture will address the risks, the gains and the methodological issues of such ambitious enterprise.

More about: www.locusludi.ch

Véronique Dasen is Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Fribourg, specialised on ancient material and visual culture. She published several monographs and collective books on the history of the body, medicine, magic, childhood and gender (Dwarfs in Ancient Egypt and Greece, 1993; Jumeaux, jumelles dans l’Antiquité grecque et romaine, 2005; La médecine grecque et romaine, with H. King, 2008; Le sourire d’Omphale. Maternité et petite enfance dans l’Antiquité, 2015; Famille et société dans le monde grec et en Italie du Ve siècle au IIe siècle av. J.-C., with J.-B. Bonnard and J. Wilgaux 2017; Le Cannibale, 2022; Le jeu comme métaphore. Images ludiques de Grèce ancienne, 2024). She led the ERC Advanced Grant project Locus Ludi. The Cultural Fabric of Play and Games in Classical Antiquity (2017-2023) funded by the European Research Council.).