Bulletin

Issue: August 2005

News

Inaugural Jim Allen Lecture Images of the Classical World

A new publiclecture series to bring archaeological scholars of significant international reputation to Australia to enrich teaching and research was launched by the University in July.

Professor Murray, left, reads the citation
prior to the University's award to
Professor Schnapp, standing centre.

Named 'The Allen Lecture', the event honours one of Australia's pre-eminent archae-ologists, La Trobe University Foundation Professor of Archaeology, Jim Allen.

Professor Jim Allen was appointed Foundation Professor of the Department of Archaeology at La Trobe in 1985 and, from 1993 until his retirement from full time academia in 1998, he was an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow at the University.

During his long archaeological career Professor Allen was most famously associated with two major research projects: the Lapita Homeland Project (based in Melanesia) and the Southern Forests Archaeological Project (based in Tasmania). In 1998 he was appointed Professor Emeritus in La Trobe University and is currently also a Fellow in the Centre for Archaeological Research at the ANU and Research Professor in Anthropology at the University of Utah, USA.

The inaugural lecture was given by the Director of the National Institute for the History of Art in Paris, Professor Alain Schnapp who spoke on Vestiges, Monuments, and Ruins: East faces West. An internationally recognised historian of archaeology and classical archaeologist, and also Professor of Archaeology at the University of Paris 1 (Panthéon-Sorbonne), he has conducted excavations in Italy and Greece, most recently publishing reports of the excavations at Itanos in Crete.

His work interprets Greek images and their use to explain the social history of ancient cities. Some of it, on the representations of hunting and female youth in the Greek world, deals with the use of hunting and erotic imagery. His later research concentrates on the link between the symbolism of the body and civic space and the interpretation of traditional Greek imagery from antiquity until the Age of Enlightenment. Professor Schnapp was awarded the honorary degree 'Doctor of Letters' by the University in recognition of his contribution the study of archaeology in Europe and Australia. La Trobe University Head of Historical and European Studies, Professor of Archaeology, Tim Murray, who hosts the new lecture series, said Professor Schnapp contributed to the study of archaeology at La Trobe 'as a source of advice and by demonstrating the great benefits that can flow to archaeology through a meaningful intersection with art history and the traditions of antiquarian scholarship'.