Al Duncan (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) "A Funny 'Thing' Happened: Material Agency and Aesthetics in Aristophanic Comedy"

Talk Description: This talk explores the practical and aesthetic consequences that follow from inverting the hierarchy of dramatic production influentially presented in Aristotle's Poetics. Applying insights from new materialisms, Brownian 'Thing Theory,' and generative artificial intelligence, this talk reconsiders the structure of the comedies of Aristophanes according to their material dimensions. It investigates how the realia of theater—including props and costumes—actively shaped both literary production and dramatic performance, rather than merely serving them. Dethroning poet and plot from their Aristotelian seats of authority, it asks in what ways objects may be reconceived not merely as instruments or even as actors, but as veritable authors of Greek drama.

Biography: A. C. "Al" Duncan (PhD, Stanford, 2012) is Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests concern the aesthetics, materiality, performance, and reception of ancient dramatic performance. His first book, Ugly Productions: An Aesthetics of Greek Drama, was published by the University of Michigan Press in February. He is currently co-editing (with Anne-Sophie Noel, ENS Lyon) a volume on spectatorship in ancient drama while engaged in two book-length projects, one concerning distributed authorship in Greek drama and the other on the reception of ex machina epiphanies within politically divided societies.

This talk will not be available on zoom and will not be recorded.