St Andrews Centre for the Reception of Antiquity (SACRA): Collaborations with Antiquity: Medieval and Early Modern

Workshop, 6-7 May 2026 Room S4, Swallowgate, School of Classics, University of St Andrews

Teleological accounts of national literary histories valorise the ‘conquest’ of the vernacular and celebrate great individual ‘overreachers’. This workshop instead investigates the ways culture, languages, people and ideas continue to work together with and through antiquity in medieval and early modern Europe. This workshop brings together scholars in Early Modern Studies, Modern Languages, History and Classics. It aims to move beyond established approaches (‘quotation studies’, ‘classical reception’, ‘individual authorship’, ‘allusion and intertextuality’ ) to explore complex stories of collaboration with antiquity. We hope that this inter-disciplinary approach will create new ways of understanding the cultures, intellectual histories, and creative literature and material culture of medieval and early modern Europe.

This workshop is the annual event of the St Andrews Centre for the Receptions of Antiquity (SACRA). We are grateful to The School of Classics and SACRA for their financial support.

This workshop is an in-person event. Attendance is free, but you must register to attend by emailing eb221@st-andrews.ac.uk by 29 April 2026.

Find out more information on the SACRA website: https://sacra.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/2026/04/15/collaborations-with-antiquity-medieval-and-early-modern/