Ancient World Seminar: Bettina Reitz-Joosse (University of Groningen) "Visualising Making: The ‘Process Genre’ in Ancient Rome"

Abstract

In this paper, I analyze depictions of ‘making’ in Roman texts and images, using an approach recently developed within film studies. The ‘process genre’ (Skvirsky 2021) is a transmedial category of representation which encompasses different kinds of depictions of labour in progress. Within film studies, its study has led to a new understanding of what Skvirsky has called the ‘aesthetic of labour’. In my paper I explore the applicability and heuristic potential of the process genre in relation to ancient Roman textual and visual media. Where can we find examples of the process genre in ancient Rome? What are its distinctive features? How might we analyze its impact on viewers and readers? And what are some of its mechanisms of selection and curation, which render particular practices, steps, or people (in-)visible? I will approach these questions through four collaborative processes of making as they are represented in Roman texts or images: road building, forging, baking, and woodworking.

About the speaker

Bettina Reitz-Joosse is Associate Professor of Latin Language and Literature. She researches the relationship between literature and material culture in Roman Antiquity.