Source: Boya (Liberal Arts) College
Written by: Boya (Liberal Arts) College
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

On November 8, 2017, the International Masters Frontier Forum and the 2nd Chen Yinque Academic Lecture Series, organized by Boya (Liberal Arts) College of Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU), started in Swasey Hall on Guangzhou South Campus. Professor Philip Russell Hardie, Senior Research Fellow and Honorary Professor of Latin at Trinity College from University of Cambridge, U.K., was invited to give three lectures entitled ‘Virgilian plots in late antique Latin poetry: public ideologies and private journeys’, ‘Ovidian Bodies’ and ‘Philosophy and Science in Late Republican and Augustan Latin Literature’ from November 8-10 for the 2nd Chen Yinque Academic Lecture Series.
 

Professor Philip Russell Hardie giving a lecture at SYSU
 

During the first lecture ‘Virgilian plots in late antique Latin poetry: public ideologies and private journeys’, Professor Hardie showed in details the various ways that Virgil’ s poems especially Aeneid could be read and used by different poets in late antiquity. Professor Hardie focused on the ideology of renewal that exploits Virgilian plots of return, repetition, and restoration. He also showed us a variety of aspects of Virgilian dichotomy, for instance, the contrasts between discord and concord, between bright Olympian gods and dark spirits of the Hell, between reason and fury, between objects of praise and that of blame, etc. In the Q&A session, Professor Hardie won a burst of applause by answering students’ and teachers’ questions with patience and care. About 150 faculty and students from Boya (Liberal Arts) College and other schools attended the lecture.

Philip Russell Hardie was educated at St Paul's School, London and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He was Corpus Christi Professor of the Latin Language and Literature at the University of Oxford (2002-6), and since 2006 he has been Senior Research Fellow and Honorary Professor of Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 2000 he was elected a fellow of the British Academy. In 2014 he was elected as an honorary fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and in spring 2016 was the 102nd Sather lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a member of the Academia Europaea.