Dear colleagues,
We would like to announce the Call for Papers for a panel on Roman Poetry and Philosophy at the next Celtic Conference in Classics, which will take place in Maynooth (Ireland) from 14 to 17 July 2026.
From its earliest beginnings, ancient philosophy engaged in a productive dialogue with contemporary poetry: already in the Republic, Plato writes of a ‘long-standing dispute between philosophy and poetry’ (Rep. 10.607b), while scholars have long recognised the impact of philosophical ideas on literary texts from the Classical period onwards. This panel proposes to explore the range of ways in which the ‘dispute’ was continued by Roman writers, both poets and philosophers. Thinkers from Cicero to Seneca and beyond both critique Greek and Roman poetry and employ poetic quotations in support of their philosophical arguments; conversely, Lucretius, Virgil, Manilius and others embody philosophical doctrine in didactic verse. Beyond these obvious fields of engagement, however, we seek to uncover subtler and perhaps more pervasive ways in which poets draw on, react against, critique or appropriate philosophical language, concepts and ideals, and, conversely, to examine the range of strategies, both explicit and implicit, employed by philosophical writing in relation to poetry – as a source of positive and negative exempla; as an interlocutor in the analysis of ethical, social or political conduct; or as a promulgator of misconceptions and false ideas (‘lies of the poets’). This has been a topic of considerable interest in recent work on Latin literature and thought (see, for example, Konstan and Garani, The Philosophizing Muse (2014); Yona, Epicurean Ethics in Horace (2018); Williams and Volk, Philosophy in Ovid, Ovid as Philosopher (2022); Kelly, Ovid and Plato (2025)), but much of the terrain remains to be explored.
Confirmed Speakers
- Monica Gale (TCD)
- Alison Keith (Toronto)
- Basil Nelis (Leiden)
- Leah O’Hearn (MU)
- Donncha O’Rourke (Edinburgh)
- George Prekas (UCD)
- Brian Walters (Illinois)
- Peter Kelly (Princeton)
We welcome papers in English addressing any Roman author, poetic or philosophical, from the Republican period to late Antiquity. Submissions in French may also be accepted. Speakers are kindly requested to pre-circulate French-language papers at least a week before the conference.
Papers should be 40 minutes long, to be followed by 20 minutes of discussion. Please complete the paper proposal template with a provisional title and an abstract of no more than 300 words, and send it to the panel organisers Monica Gale ([email protected]) and Leah O’Hearn ([email protected]) by 28th February 2026. Please note that the conference is an in-person event and that travel and accommodation are self-funded. All participants, including speakers, will be required to pay a registration fee.
