Imagines 8
Pagan Pornotopias?
The Reception of Antiquity in Eroticism and Pornography
Madrid, 27-29 September 2023
Programme
Wednesday, September 27
Place: Centro Cultural La Corrala (Salón de Actos). C/ Carlos Arniches, 3-5
14.00 Registration - Coffee
15.00 Conference Opening – Greetings of the Authorities
Filippo Carlà-Uhink (Potsdam) & Luis Unceta Gómez (Madrid), Introduction
Panel 1: What Aroused Our Forefathers and Foremothers? Antiquity in 18th and 19th Century Eroticism
Chair: Filippo Carlà-Uhink (Potsdam)
15.30 Katherine Harloe (London), Practical Enlightenment: Pagan Pornotopia in Casanova’s Encounter With Winckelmann
15.55 Athena Leoussi (Reading), ‘La joie de vivre’: Modern Hellenism and the Revival of the Life of the Senses
16.20 Discussion
16.45 Coffee Break
17.15 Nikolai Endres (Bowling Green), A Pornotopia in Sicily? The Baron von Gloeden’s Reception of Antiquity
17.40 Stefania Arcara (Catania), “Dark, Virulent, Divine”: the Fin-de-Siècle invention of Sapphic Eroticism in Britain
18.05 Discussion
18.30 Imagines Group Meeting – only for members of Imagines
Thursday, September 28
Place: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (Salón de Actos). Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Panel 2: Ancient Models for Modern Sex
Chair: Irene Berti (Heidelberg)
09.00 Anastasia Bakogianni (Auckland), Can Greek Tragic Heroines Ever be Sexy? Eroticism vs. Female Revenge
09.25 Thomas E. Jenkins (San Antonio), Getting to the Bottom of Rufus Wainwright’s Hadrian: Identity and Bravery in Contemporary Opera
09.50 Anise Strong (Kalamazoo), Ancient Sexuality and Modern Video Games
10.15 Discussion
10.45 Coffee Break
Panel 3: So We Dare Speak Its Name: Antiquity in (and for) Homosexual and Queer Desire
Chair: Luis Unceta Gómez (Madrid)
11.15 Filippo Carlà-Uhink (Potsdam), Performing Doric and Ionic Love: Ancient Greece in Gay Male Pornography
11.40 Patricia A. Gwozdz & Markus Lenz (Potsdam), Subversive Hercules. How to Fashion Queer Desire in Popular Culture and Instagram
12.05 David Delbar (Chicago), Domination and the Minotaur
12.30 Discussion
13.00 Lunch
Panel 4: Spatialisations of Lust: Sexualised Antiquity in Architecture and Decoration
Chair: Marta García Morcillo (Durham)
14.30 Jean-Noël Castorio & Stephanie Ferrand (Le Havre), The Monuments of the «Captain Storm» and the Neoclassical Erotism
15.00 Sanja Vucetic (Sheffield), Classical Greek Images of Sex as Modern ‘Adults Only’ Souvenir Art
15.25 Jorge Elices Ocón (Madrid), Marble Breasts and Phalli of Stone: Classical Statues as Erotic Reference and Pornographic Transgression in the Islamic World
15.55 Discussion
16.15 Coffee Break
16.45 Ricardo del Molino (Bogotá), El clasicismo de burdel en América Latina. La antigüedad egipcia, griega y romana en prostíbulos, moteles y hoteles de tránsito hispanoamericanos
17.10 Tanja Kilzer (Siegen), “Sexy Goddesses and Handsome Gladiators” – Eroticized Stereotypes of the Antiquity in the US-American Hotel Business of Jay Sarno in the 1960s
17.35 Discussion
18.00 Coffee Break
18.30 Carmelo Blázquez Jiménez (Barcelona), De héroes y efebos. Referencias clásicas en mi fotografía
Friday, September 29
Place: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (Salón de Actos). Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Panel 5: Antiquity Goes Hard: Greece, Rome and the Pornography Debate
Chair: Anja Wieber (Dortmund)
09.00 Martin Lindner (Göttingen), X-Rated Classics – Cinematic Antiquity and the Impossibility to Classify Pornography
09.25 Alastair Blanshard (Brisbane), But Is It Pornography? Locating Obscenity in the Classicising Photographs and Films of Mid-Century Physique Culture
09.50 Florian Freitag (Essen), Traditions Revisited and Continued: Antiquity in the new Physique Pictorial
10.15 Discussion
10.45 Coffee Break
11.15 Charlotte Gregory (London), The Dynamics of Interracial Pornography in Troy: Fall of a City (2018)
11.40 Anna Socha (Liverpool), The Iliad 2: A (Very) Dirty Story. Sexualised Retelling of the Iliad and Odyssey
12.05 Luis Unceta Gómez (Madrid), Pagan Pornotropes. Ancient Rome and the Erotics of Power in Pornographic Comic Books
12.30 Discussion
13.00 Final Discussion and Conclusions
13.30 Lunch
....
To attend in presence or online, please register by sending an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
© Carmelo Blázquez