Theory After Practice Conference

When and Where

Thursday, October 09, 2025 5:00 pm to Saturday, October 11, 2025 4:00 pm
Zoom / Great Hall (3rd Floor, Room 312)
Lillian Massey Building
125 Queen's Park, Toronto, ON, M5S 2C7

Description

Rhetorical theory in Greco-Roman antiquity describes and frequently prescribes rhetorical practice. Nevertheless, the most famous and influential examples of theoretical texts all emerge in the wake of practice. We wish to take a revised and critical look at the relationship between theory and practice. Theory will be treated as an intervention rather than a neutral description. Why was this intervention needed? To what extent is it successful in constraining future practice? What is emphasized or elided within these accounts? What emerges if more practical works are re-read in a light that no longer privileges antecedent or contemporary theoretical works?

On-line via Zoom: registration information via colloquiumforancientrhetoric.scholars.harvard.edu

Theory After Practice

Schedule

Thursday, October 9

5:00-6:30 pm Keynote Address
R. Webb (Lille), “Ekphrasis in the Progymasmata between theory and practice”

Friday, October 10

10:15 am-12:00 pm Classical Athens
Chair: L. Viidebaum (NYU)
G. Maltagliati (Cambridge), “Hidden in Theory: Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric and the Ethics of Concealment”, D. Napoli (Cornell), “Rhētorikē, or the Art of Antilogy”

12:00-1:10 pm Lunch

1:15-3:00 pm Declamation
Chair: E. Gunderson (Toronto)
M. Roller (Johns Hopkins), “Contesting succession in the Centumviral Court and in declamation”, J. Uden (Yale), “Declamation: Learning to Fail”

3:00-3:15 pm
Coffee break

3:15-5:30 pm Politics
Chair: I. Peirano Garrison (Harvard)
M. Oliva (Firenze), “How to Write a Rhetorical Handbook? The Challenge of the Literary Genre at the End of the Roman Republic”
J. Harmsworth (Columbia), “From Theory to Punditry: Rhetorical Practice and the Polis in Plutarch’s Political Precepts”

5:30-5:45 pm
Coffee break

5:45-7:15 pm Keynote Address
J. Porter (Berkeley), “Ancient Rhetorical Criticism as Metacriticism”

Saturday, October 11

10:15 am-12:00 pm Religion
Chair: E. Gunderson (Toronto)
L. Niccolai (Cambridge), “Seeking truthfulness and authority in late antique theological debates”
J. Kee (Harvard), “Panegyric and Ritual, Theory and Theōria: Eustathios of Thessalonike’s Orations for Patriarch Michael III”

12:00-1:15 pm Lunch

1:15-2:00 pm Aesthetics
Chair: N. Janssen (Amherst)
G. Gualdi (NYU), “Show Don't Tell: Practicing, Summary with the Ilias Latina”

2:00-2:15 pm Coffee break

2:15-3:45 pm Keynote Address
N. Worman (Barnard), “The Politics of Embodiment in Dramatic Theory"