Performing Ideology: Classicism, Modernity, and Social Context An APA / Camp Three-Year Colloquium

SYLLECTA CLASSICA 19 (2008): 181-182 PERFORMING IDEOLOGY: CLASSICISM, MODERNITY, AND SOCIAL CONTEXT AN APA / CAMP THREE-YEAR COLLOQUIUM GESINE MANUWALD AND HALLIE MARSHALL From 2006 to 2008 the Committee on Ancient and Modern Performance (CAMP), a subcommittee of the American Philological Association (APA) chaired by Mary-Kay Gamel, has been able to sponsor a series of three panels over the three APA conventions in those years, thanks to the support of the APA Program Committee and of the Vice-Presidents for Outreach, Barbara Gold and Judith P. Hallett. This three-year colloquium was entitled “Performing Ideology: Classicism, Modernity, and Social Context” and intended to explore how performance functions as a vehicle for ideology in the contemporary interpretation of antiquity. This focus allowed the combination of several more recent approaches to and perspectives on ancient drama such as performance theory and criticism, reception theory more generally as well as political and other ideological readings of ancient texts in the contemporary world more specifically; this set-up also enabled the discussion of the mutual relationship between specific ideologies and modern performances. The possibility of developing a topic over three years made it possible to look at three different, albeit related aspects of this overall issue, namely political commentary, issues of sexuality as well as national and social identity. At the same time the calls for papers motivated people with a variety of backgrounds and interests so that a great range of different case studies was brought together to explore the topic. The resulting breadth of periods, countries and genres (drama, opera, film, dance) provided a broad panorama that illustrated the wide variety of possible applications and realizations of the respective notions. From the outset it had been CAMP’s plan to publish the papers without disrupting the connections between them. For it was thought that this coherent and at the same time diverse overview of the issues raised deserved being brought to a wider readership beyond the original audiences. Therefore it is a great pleasure to acknowledge the generosity and cooperation of Syllecta Classica’s editors, who—after negotiations by Gesine Manuwald and Hallie Marshall on behalf of CAMP—have kindly agreed to cooperate with CAMP’s plans. Hence the following 182 SYLLECTA CLASSICA 19 (2008) pages will reproduce papers from the first year (‘Classical Drama as Political Drama’) as a first installment. The papers, which are the slightly revised versions of the talks originally given, are preceded by a short introduction by the panel’s organizer that explains the panel’s aims and objectives and puts the papers into context. It is hoped that thereby readers of the journal will be able to get an idea of the rationale behind the original structure and also to enjoy the individual case studies. ...