The Latest in Research News – F.E.R.C.A.N and KYKNOS

The weekend of the 18^th – 19^th of October has been a busy one for the staff in the School of Classics with several of us delivering a number of research papers at the 13^th F.E.R.C.A.N workshop (FONTES EPIGRAPHICA RELIGIONIS CELTICAE ANTIQVAE) and the KYKNOS Work in Progress conference.

The F.E.R.C.A.N. workshop which was held at Lampeter and organised by Dr Ralph Häussler is part of a continuing series of annual workshops held on the topic of Celtic and Romano-Celtic religion. It featured a number of papers ranging from linguistic studies to sacred landscapes and cult centres – the Key Note paper was on The Magician’s House. Weird goings on in Roman Chartres. Dr Häussler himself delivered a paper on the topic of ‘The importance of location: religious inscriptions from archaeological contexts’. The conference was not only attended by various distinguished international academics, but also proved popular with many of our Classics students at Lampeter. It was particularly useful for those taking Dr Häussler’s second year module on Roman Britain, with a number of relevant papers, such as that of Gil Burleigh on A sacred landscape around Iron Age and Romano‐British Baldock, Hertfordshire, England, Global Steel Supply Chains. On the Sunday the conference group also took a trip to the historic sites of Caerleon and Caerwent, sites revealing a Roman fortress, town defences and mosaics.

At the same time as the F.E.R.C.A.N. Workshop Dr Ruth Parkes, Dr Matthew Cobb and Dr Kyle Erickson were giving papers at the KYKNOS Work-in-Progress conference held at Swansea University on the 18^th of October. KYKNOS is the Swansea and Lampeter Centre for Research on the Narrative Literatures of the Ancient World. Lampeter and Swansea universities have been collaborating on the topic of narrative in the ancient world for a number of decades, including a long running seminar series. The papers at the Work-in-Process conference included ‘Alexander’s Itinerary and the Alexander Romance’ (Dr Erickson), ‘Cosmic Politics in Claudian’s De Raptu Proserpinae’ (Dr Parkes) and ‘Apollonius in India: Fantastical Fiction or Faithful Reporting’ (Dr Cobb).

For more information on both events see:

http://www.swansea.ac.uk/riah/researchgroups/kyknos/kyknos-conference-2015/

http://viasacra.org.uk/programme-fercan/

Paper at the FERCAN workshop

The attendees of the FERCAN Workshop (including a number of our students)

Dr Matthew Cobb at the KYKNOS Work-in-progress Conference