Professor Katherine Dunbabin, McMaster University
"The Romans at Dinner: a view from archaeology and art"
Wednesday, November 14 at 5 p.m.
Humanities 1, room 210
Free parking for the lecture in Cowell-Steventson Parking lots
Coffee at 4:30 and more refreshments after the talk
Dinner for the ancient Romans was the central function of social life, and a formal dinner party was governed by numerous rules. Some Roman dining conventions are still in use, but many are now unfamiliar, such as the practice of reclining on a couch, which had been adopted by the Romans from Greeks. While written sources have much to say about Roman dining habits, their evidence can be expanded, enriched, and sometimes challenged by that of archaeology and art. In her lecture, Professor Dunbabin will explore the various customs of ancient dining and how they illustrate the attitudes and ideology of their creator and viewers.
Katherin Dunbabin is Emerita with the Department of Classics, McMaster University, and holds her degrees from Oxford University. Her areas of specialization are Roman art and mosaics, Roman dining customs, and theater and spectacle in the Roman Empire, and she has published widely on these topics. She served as the specialist on the Roman mosaics for the University of Michigan excavations at Carthage, and has also worked at a number of sites in Italy.
For more information, please contact hedrick@ucsc.edu.
