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  3. Rhetoric, drama and their critics: celebrating the work of Malcolm Heath

Research project

Rhetoric, drama and their critics: celebrating the work of Malcolm Heath

Malcolm Heath, Professor of Greek Language and Literature Leeds

Description

The project aims to celebrate the contribution to Classics of Malcolm Heath, Professor of Greek Language and Literature Leeds 1988-2022. An outstanding scholar, he was author of 8 monographs, the best-selling Penguin Classics translation of Aristotle’s Poetics, and more than 70 articles ranging across numerous areas of research, in all of which his work has been highly influential.  Our title ‘Rhetoric, drama and their critics’ is an attempt to capture the extraordinary breadth of Prof. Heath’s interests, ranging chronologically and generically from Homeric epic poetry via tragedy, comedy and Aristotelian philosophy to the rhetorical theory of late antiquity. The symposium in May 2026 will provide the basis for an edited volume as a Festschrift in Prof. Heath’s memory.

Rhetoric, drama and their critics: a symposium in memory of Malcolm Heath, late emeritus Professor of Greek Language and Literature at Leeds

Thursday 21 to Friday 22 May 2026

This two-day conference will be held on the University of Leeds' main campus, in the Michael Sadler Building where Leeds Classics is situated. The provisional programme is as follows; a final version will be posted shortly before the event, but please contact the conference organisers if you have any queries.

Programme 

Thursday 21 May

10.00–11.00: Registration – LG Foyer, inside Michael Sadler main entrance. Coffee and tea available.

11.00–11.15: All academic sessions in Michael Sadler LG19. Welcome: Emma Cayley (Head of the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies) and Emma Stafford (Director of Classics)  

11.15–13.00: Session 1: Tragedy in dialogue.

Chair: Fabio Sarranito (Leeds)

Daria Molinari (Princeton) – Seeing the tragic in the Iliad: Homer, tragedy and ancient criticism
Edmund Stewart (Nottingham) – The poetics of Greek tragedy reassessed
Michael Lloyd (Dublin) – Rhetoric and relevance in Euripides’ agon scenes

13.00–14.00: Lunch – Ullmann Foyer (Michael Sadler Level 1)

14.00–15.45 Session 2: Emotions and audiences.

Chair: Sam Gartland (Leeds)

Tim McConnell (Leeds) – Being a good audience to poets and politicians
Michele Cova (Venice/Udine/Trieste) – Tasting other people’s misfortune – the element of ἐπιχαιρεκακία in Aristophanes
Douglas Cairns (Edinburgh) – Sympathy and identification in ancient Greek poetics

15.45–16.15: Coffe/tea – Michael Sadler LG19

16.15–18.00: Session 3: Roman responses

Chair: Paul White (Leeds)

Andreas Gavrielatos (Reading) – Platonic poetics in Stoic contexts
George Woudhuysen (Nottingham) – The date of Sulpicius Victor revisited
Regine May (Leeds) – Based on an abstract by Robert Maltby, The Role of Rhetoric in Donatus' Terence Commentaries: Donatus and stasis theory

18.00: Drinks – Ullmann Foyer (Michael Sadler Level 1)

19.30: Dinner – central Leeds (tbc)

Friday 22 May

09.00-9.30: Day-registration – LG foyer, inside Michael Sadler main entrance

09.30-11.15: All academic sessions in Michael Sadler LG19. Session 4: Aristotle

Chair: Roger Brock (Leeds)

Edith Hall (Durham) – Aristotle’s theatres of the mind
Dana Munteanu (Ohio) – Tragedies and the polis in Aristotle’s Rhetoric
Pierre Destrée (Louvain) – Aristotle on the function of metaphor in poetry

11.15-11.45: Coffee/tea – Michael Sadler LG19

11.45–13.30: Session 5: Not the Second Sophistic 

Chair: Owen Hodkinson (Leeds)

Judith Mossman (Coventry) – Attic(ist) rhetoric: parody in Lucian’s Sigma versus Tau
Sebastian Zellner (Berlin) – (Cassius?) Longinus and the third century CE – an inverted approach
Elizabeth Conner (Maryland) – The social relevance of rhetoric in Late Antiquity: the letters of Aeneas and Procopius of Gaza

13.00–14.00: Lunch – Ullmann Foyer (Michael Sadler Level 1)

14.00–15.10: Session 6: Nachleben

Chair: Penny Goodman (Leeds)

Sara Rubinelli (Lucerne) – The afterlife of Aristotle’s Rhetoric: from classical theory to human care

15.10–15.30: Concluding remarks. Emma Stafford (Leeds)

Conference practicalities and booking

The registration fee includes coffees/teas and lunch for each day, and a reception on Day 1; rates for either the whole event or individual days are available.  On Day 1 an optional dinner in a central Leeds restaurant will be arranged, which will be charged on the day.  Overnight accommodation is not provided, but a variety of hotels and other types of accommodation are available in the vicinity.

Every effort has been made to keep conference costs down.  However, we do have a small budget to assist with the costs of postgraduate students/early career researchers: please contact the conference organisers to enquire about this.

Please follow this link to book your place and read more information about suggested accommodation options. 

Contact: MFHSymposium@leeds.ac.uk

We would like to acknowledge the support of the Hellenic Society and the Institute of Classical Studies, as well as the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies.

Logos for Hellenic Society and the Institute of Classical Studies

Publications and outputs

Rhetoric, drama and their critics: a symposium in memory of Malcolm Heath, late emeritus Professor of Greek Language and Literature at Leeds. (Thursday 21st to Friday 22nd May 2026)