BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:'Greek sculpture and ‘stuffed natives’ at the Crystal Palace\,
  Sydenham.  Defining the classical body in 1850s London' - Dr. Kate Nichol
 s\, CRASSH\, University of Cambridge
DTSTART:20121101T171500Z
DTEND:20121101T183000Z
UID:TALK41333@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Helen Roche
DESCRIPTION:In 2006\, London Underground was bedecked with a British Museu
 m advertising campaign featuring an image of the Discobolos\, and bearing 
 the slogan ‘Ever fancied abs that look like they’re carved out of ston
 e? Try some training tips from ancient Greece\, the culture which gave us 
 the original six-pack.’ The campaign sparked several critical comment pi
 eces in the press\, which deemed it a cynical attempt to convince twenty-f
 irst century viewers of the collections’ ‘relevance’\, deriding the 
 Museum for latching on to ‘whatever is flying around in popular culture
 ’. The idea that the ancient Greeks bodily resembled their statuary\, an
 d that the enviable physiques of their sculpture were a product of an athl
 etic lifestyle specific to antiquity\, however\, boasts a pedigree reachin
 g back to the very origins of modern writing on ancient sculpture. This pa
 per examines the fixation on the relationship between Greek sculpture and 
 the bodies of ancient Greeks\, looking in particular at the intersections 
 between anthropology and classical archaeology\, two ‘sciences’ develo
 ping side by side in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. I’ll be examining t
 he role that the physical bodies of Greek sculpture played in defining Bri
 tish national and ethnic identity\, and their contribution to Victorian id
 eas about race\, health and social class\, using the displays in the Greek
  Court and the Natural History Department of the Crystal Palace as a case 
 study.
LOCATION:Classics Faculty\, Room G.21
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR