American Philological Association - Convention

Convention

The Association holds its annual convention in January, meeting jointly with the Archaeological Institute of America. About 400 scholarly papers are delivered at the APA meeting, which is also the site for interviewing for college and university positions and for the meetings of the many committees and affiliated groups. It is also the occasion for the presentation of APA awards for teaching at both pre-collegiate and collegiate level, for projects that bring classics to a wider public (outreach), and of the Goodwin Award of Merit, which recognizes a recently published book.

At every meeting, the Outreach Division conducts two events that are open to the general public. One is a special panel that is of interest to non-specialists. Topics have included the movie Troy, Classics and Contemporary Fiction and the HBO series Rome and Classics and Comics. The second is the staged reading of a classical or classically-themed play, by the Committee on Ancient and Modern Performance. The productions have been: The Invention of Love (Tom Stoppard, directed by Mary-Kay Gamel, produced by Judith Hallett), The Heavensgate Deposition (based on Apocolocyntosis by Seneca the Younger, adapted by Douglass Parker, directed by Amy R. Cohen, produced by Thomas Jenkins), The Golden Age (by Thomas Heywood, directed by C. W. Marshall), Iran Man (based on Persa by Plautus, directed by Mary-Kay Gamel), Thespis (by W. S. Gilbert and A. S. Sullivan, with new music by Alan Riley Jones, directed by John Starks, produced by John Given), The Birds (by Aristophanes, directed by Thomas Talboy), Cyclops (by Euripides, directed by Laura Lippman and Mike Lippman), Thersites (perhaps by Nicholas Udall, directed by C. W. Marshall), Thesmophoriazusae (by Aristophanes, directed by Bella Vivante) and The Jurymen (by Katherine Janson, directed by Amy R. Cohen).