Cancelled- Due to travel issues Mr. Hayward unfortunately can make make his schedule talk.

Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, Center for European Studies present:

Paul Anthony Hayward, Senior Lecturer in Late Roman and Earlier Medieval History Lancaster University (UK)

The Fall of Rome in Contemporary Film

Taking Jerry Bruckheimer’s King Arthur (2004) and Alejandro Amenábar’s Agora (2009) as case studies, this paper investigates the role of the past in popular culture. Both films re-invent long-established stories about how Rome fell: Amenábar tells the story of how the philosopher Hypatia was murdered in 415 CE, Bruckheimer that of Arthur’s resistance to the Saxon invasion of Britain. Casting their heroes as martyrs for social and intellectual freedom, both mis-represent the period’s religious politics in an attempt to make their tales relevant.
A graduate of the University of Auckland and the University Cambridge, Paul Hayward teaches later Roman and earlier medieval history at the University of Otago and Lancaster University. His publications include The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown (2000) and The Winchcombe and Coventry Chronicles (2010).

Lunch will be served.

For information on accessibility, or to request accommodation, please contact Marc Albert 315-443-9248.

Sponsored by the Center for European Studies at the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs.