NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò presents the International Symposium
Eros: Thinking, Feeling, Writing Love from Classical Antiquity to Early Modernity
Thursday-Friday, October 12-13, 2023
Registration is required for in-person attendance - links to register are below.
This event will also be broadcast live - Day 1 and Day 2.
What is the nature of love? Does it possess a fixed essence? Is it genetically hardcoded? Or does it bend under the influence of social constructs? Does it transform across time periods, geographical locations and cultural contexts? How is it conceived within varying social and historical frameworks? And how does its perception shift alongside evolving scientific paradigms and the narratives woven by fiction?
Beyond their scholarly significance, these questions resonate deeply with us as human beings. The Eros symposium brings together eminent scholars in Literature, Philosophy, Musicology, History of Emotions, and Neurobiology: they will gather at Casa Italiana to share their research, unravel these enigmas, and engage in dialogue with both the in-person and virtual audience.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12
2:00 p.m. INTRODUCTION
Ida Caiazza (NYU)
2:15-4:00 p.m. SESSION 1
Keynote Talks: History vs. Science?
Chair: Stefano Albertini (Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, NYU)
Fantasies of Eros
Barbara H. Rosenwein (Loyola University Chicago)
Memory and Emotion: A Neurobiological Hypothesis for the Individual Shape of Eros
Cristina Alberini (NYU)
4:00-4:30 p.m. COFFEE BREAK
4:30-6:30 p.m. SESSION 2
Classical and Humanist Roots
Chair: Ida Caiazza (NYU)
The Two Faces of Love in Classical Greece
David Konstan (NYU)
"Ovid, the Philosopher Who Wrote Books About Love": Reading Ovid in the Italian Middle Ages
Julie Van Peteghem (CUNY)
Amor and the Intellect in Quattrocento Female Humanist Writing
Aileen A. Feng (University of Arizona)
Register for Thursday, October 12 (in-person registration)
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13
9:00-11:00 a.m. SESSION 3
Early Modernity 1: Love and the Arts
Chair: Eugenio Refini (NYU)
The Memory of Passions
Lina Bolzoni (Scuola Normale di Pisa)
De l'Affection des Pères aux Enfans: Poetry, Eros, and Letting Go (or not) of One's Word
Jane Tylus (Yale)
Learning About Love With or Without Music
Giuseppe Gerbino (Columbia)
11:00-11:30 a.m. COFFEE BREAK
11:30-1:00 a.m. LIGHTNING TALKS
Young Researchers on Eros
Chair: Martha D. Rust (NYU)
Giulia Bertoni (Columbia)
Edward Dioguardi (NYU)
Aleksandra Urbaniak (Adam Mickiewicz University)
Giuseppe Vicinanza (The New School for Social Research)
Costanza Barchiesi (Yale)
Francesca Leonardi (Yale)
Eleanor Webb (University of Pennsylvania)
Manali Allen (Rutgers)
Julia Pelosi-Thorpe (University of Pennsylvania)
3:00-5:00 p.m. SESSION 4
Early Modernity 2: Love and Science
Chair: Karl Appuhn (NYU)
Love, Reason, Choice: A Medical Reading of Medieval Italian Poetry
Paola Ureni (CUNY)
The Constant Torment of Love: The Psychosomatic Dimension of Love Sickness in Medieval and Early Modern Medical Literature
Monica Calabritto (CUNY)
Love Healers: Philosophers and Physicians on Lovesickness in the Confessional Age
Eva Del Soldato (University of Pennsylvania)
Register for Friday, October 13 (in-person registration)
These events are part of the research project Women Thinking Love: A Gendered History of Emotions in Renaissance and Post-Tridentine Italy (1500-1650). This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement no. 101024624.
The organizers also wish to acknowledge the generous support received from NYU’s Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, NYU’s Department of Italian Studies and NYU’s Medieval and Renaissance Center.