Posted by vrcvanderbilt on Monday, April 11, 2016 in Events, HART, Lectures, VRC.

A specialist in ancient Greek vase painting, Tyler Jo Smith, associate professor of classical art and archaeology, University of Virginia, will deliver the final AIA lecture of the semester on Thursday, April 14, at 6:00 pm at the Nashville Parthenon.  In her lecture, “From Hamilton to Hercules:  Greek Vases in Popular Culture,” Smith will explore the ways in which the visual imagery of Greek myths entered the popular imagination with Hamilton’s acquisition of Greek vases, tracing that influence up to the Disney film “Hercules” and the New Yorker cover (August 9 and 16, 2004) that appears on the poster for her talk.

Director of UVa’s Interdisciplinary Archaeology Program, Smith is particularly interested in the iconography of performance and the relationship between art and religion.  Author of Komast Dancers in Archaic Greek Art (Oxford 2010) and  co-editor of A Companion to Greek Art  (with Dimitris  Plantzos, 2012), she is currently writing The Art of Greek Religion (under contract with University of Pennsylvania Press).  An active field archaeologist, Smith has participated on excavations and surveys in Greece, Sicily, Turkey, and England.

Free and open to the public, her lecture is sponsored by the Nashville Society of the Archaeological Institute of America, the Conservancy for the Parthenon and Centennial Park, and Vanderbilt’s Department of Classical Studies.  Those who plan to attend the AIA lecture on April 14 are encouraged to call the Nashville Parthenon at 615.862.8431 to reserve a seat.