Making Sense of Ancient Graffiti

Join me on Friday at the LC for another fascinating lecture in the series organized by the Washington Area Group for Print Culture Studies: WAGPCS. LJ113 is a little bit hard to find, so give yourself extra time for wayfinding. I'll be there. Information below. 

The next meeting of the Washington Area Group for Print Culture Studies 2012-2013 series will take place on Friday, October 5th, from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. in the Woodrow Wilson Room (LJ-113), in the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. Rebecca Benefiel will deliver a talk entitled "Making Sense of Ancient Graffiti."

In the year AD 79, Mount Vesuvius erupted with devastating force, burying the nearby town of Pompeii under more than thirty feet of volcanic debris. Pompeii was effectively wiped off the map, but buried below the surface the material remains of the town were preserved in remarkable detail. While best known for its art, architecture, and urban infrastructure, Pompeii also offers a colorful glimpse into the world of ancient graffiti via thousands of messages written on the walls of the city. This talk confronts this widespread phenomenon occurring in the first century. From public advertisements to handwritten messages, and in a variety of locations across the city, these graffiti reveal an active populace engaging in this mode of communication. What further emerges is a sense of the strong presence of writing in the ancient city as well as clues into the social and cultural trends that inspired it.

Rebecca Benefiel is an Associate Professor of Classical Studies at Washington & Lee University where she teaches Latin literature and classical archaeology. She received her B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, did post-graduate work at the Università di Roma, ‘La Sapienza’, in Rome, Italy, and earned her Ph.D. at Harvard University. She has participated in archaeological excavations in Pompeii and Carthage, Tunisia, and is one of the supervisors for the international project, The Electronic Archive of Greek and Latin Epigraphy. In 2011, the state of Virginia bestowed upon her an Outstanding Faculty Award, its highest honor for college and university professors. She is currently working on a book on The Presence of Writing in Elite Pompeian Houses. 

Please join us for Prof. Benefiel's talk and for dinner afterwards.