The MCA’s Conference of Contemporary Research in Classics series is dedicated to showcasing ongoing or recently completed research in any field of Classics study, with a particular emphasis on the work of postgraduate students and early career scholars from around the world. The April 2025 Conference took place online between Thursday 24th and Saturday 26th April following the below programme.

Thursday 24th

17:30 – Registration

18:00 – Keynote Speech: TBC

19:15 – The Narrative of the Legio Linteata in Livy and Samnite Elites during the Social War: the Many Adaptations of a Myth.

Lorenzo Serino

19:45 – The Rise and Fall of Family and Female Potential in Plutarch’s Life of Caesar

Lien Van Geel

Friday 25th

18:00 – Reception of Ancient Myths in Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne

Nana Mukeria

18:30 – The Image and Portrayal of Zeus in The Lightning Thief

Ilona Lőrincz

19:00 – Another New Example of “Mythological Pairs” – The Representation of the Myth of Odysseus and Polyphemus in Caucasian Folklore

Giorgi Barnabishvili

19:45 – Judeo-Christian Eschatology and Late Antique Mystery Praxis

Prof. Eugene Afonasin

20:15 – Empedocles’ Love and Strife: should we regard them as manifestations of good and evil beginnings?

Dr Anna Afonasina

Saturday 26th – Morning Session

09:00 – Hecuba in Sri Lanka: A Study of Kamala Wijeratne’s Poems on Motherhood and Warfare

Dr Anushka Dhanapala

09:30 – A Feminist Rereading of Desire in the Odyssey’s Calypso Episode

Alexandra Meghji

10:00 – Greek Religion(s) in Miletus and its Aegean Colonies: a New Perspective

Iulia Petrariu

10:45 – The Preposition ΣΥΝ in Plutarch’s Moralia

Dr Adamantia Katsoula

11:15 – “Silent” Seduction in Aristaenetus’ Erotic Letters

Prof Sabira Hajdarević

12:00 – Hecuba’s Social Responsibility: Euripides’ Hecuba between Sophistic and Platonic Thought

Valentino Gargano

12:30 – The Mirror of Guilt: Theseus’ Projection of Moral Failure onto Hippolytus

Angela Hurley

13:00 – Non-verbal Communication in Aristophanes’ Frogs

Marino Marinović, Ivana Šimić

Saturday 26th – Afternoon Session

14:30 – Plato and Saussure On the Correctness of Names

Beka Gkelasvili

15:00 – The Alternative in Euclid’s Alternative Definitions: A Case Study of the Sentential Connective ἤ in Greek Scientific Prose

Dr Benjamin Wilck

15:30 – The Homeric Myth: from Platonic Condemnation to Neoplatonic Elevation

Laura Luci

16:15 – Ancient figures in Byzantine and medieval Georgian historical writings: some examples of antiquity’s reception in Christian environment

Dr Eka Tchkoidze

16:45 – What did medieval historiography take from Antiquity? The case of the Lithuanian Chronicles

Dr Vytas Januskas