Colloquium Balticum XIV Tartuense: Pontes ad fontes

Colloquium Balticum Tartuense XIV: Pontes ad fontes (Bridges to the sources) is the title of the annual international conference of the Baltic Network, organized for students and professors of Classical Philology from the Universities in Riga, Tartu, Vilnius, Lund and Marburg as well as for guests from universities of Helsinki, Łódź and Poznań etc. The main thematic focus of the conference series is on the reception and transformation of classical culture, literature and languages in the Baltic area. The series was launched in 2001 and since then the above-mentioned universities have taken turns in organizing the event. The importance of the activity of the network, including the XIV conference in Tartu, lies in the following:

1) From the aspect of the reception of antiquity, Baltic cultural space has been studied only sporadically and not systematically, although it is one of the very undercurrents upon which the modern Europe is built. It was here too indeed where rich and productive reception of antiquity took place, as a consequence of translated, processed and recycled ideas, themes and motifs. No less important is the formation of national cultural and political identities under the influence of the reception of antiquity. The results of the earlier studies have been mostly published only in languages of the Baltic area (Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian) and are thus unavailable for the Western European researchers.

2) One of the intentions of the conference is to induce young scholars to carry forward their studies. MA and PhD students present their scholarly papers in front of the competent audience of their field to get constructive yet friendly feedback. BA students have their first conference experience as listeners.

The subtitle of the conference Pontes ad fontes (Bridges to sources) is aimed at drawing attention to methodological questions in researching Antiquity and reception of ancient culture. A variety of activities can be understood as Pontes (Bridges) to Antiquity: discovery, interpretation, translation, commentaries and teaching of ancient heritage. But we also welcome papers about classical scholars as metaphorical “bridges”, i.e. topics on the history of classical philology.

International conference (November 5 – 7, 2015) with 45 papers at the University of Tartu (main building, art museum of University, room of university consistory, lecture room 140).

Explicit: Students and Professors of Classical Studies from all 5 partner universities, ca 65 – 75 participants.

Implicit: the educated public in Estonia interested in ancient culture in the context of reception and translation studies, especially teachers and students in high schools from Tartu and Tallinn, who teach or study Latin at a gymnasia (ca 75 – 80). They will be invited to the selected sessions of colloquium and introduced to the possibilities of scholarly research in humanities, especially Classics and its reception.