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Trendall Lecture

The Trendall speaker alternates between an Australian and an international scholar who is selected, where possible, on the basis of their scholarly ties to Professor Trendall or to his research interests in classical studies.

Australia has a rich history of world-leading researchers of the ancient world, its languages, literature, thought, history, art and civilisations. The Trendall Lecture celebrates this long tradition and reminds us of the deep and continuing relevance of the ancient world and late antiquity to modern life.

We are delighted to partner each year with the Australasian Society for Classical Studies Conference (ASCS) to host the Trendall Lecture.

2027 Trendall Lecture

Presented by Emeritus Professor Elizabeth Minchin OAM FAHA

The 2027 Trendall Lecture will be presented on 1 February 2027 at the ASCS 48th Annual Meeting and Conference at The University of Sydney, Australia.

When Alexander the Great visited ‘Achilles’ tomb’ near Ilion/Troy in the fourth century BCE and ordered it to be made more conspicuous in the landscape, with what confidence could he do so? When Pausanias identified for his readers the location of the sanctuary of Herakles in Thebes, how could he be so sure? 

This paper offers some reflections on what Jan Assmann has termed ‘cultural memory’. Taking three case-studies–in the modern world, the landscape and seascape near Cape Byron, New South Wales, and, in the ancient world, the ‘tombs’ of the great heroes of the Trojan War located near the Hellespont and the cityscape of Thebes–I explore how susceptible cultural memory is to distortion. I show how stories from the past may be mis-remembered, re-interpreted, and subtly (or less subtly) re-worked over time, as local populations, responding to present circumstance and present need, construct explanatory scenarios for what is before their eyes. 

Elizabeth Minchin is Emeritus Professor of Classics at the Australian National University. Her research focuses largely on the Homeric epics and the landscapes of the Greek world. She has published two monographs, three edited volumes, and many book chapters and articles.

Namesake & history

Photo of Trendall

Professor A.D. (Dale) Trendall AC CMG FAHA (1909–95) was a Foundation Fellow of the Academy. This lecture is made possible by a bequest from his estate.

The first Trendall Lecture was given by Professor Michael Osborne, then Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University, in 1997 and has been delivered almost every year since.

“Dale Trendall, of course, in a lifetime of scholarly endeavour demonstrated only too brilliantly the historical, social, and artistic significance of Greek pottery.”

– Michael Osborne, Trendall Lecture, 1997

Past Trendall Lectures

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Past lectures

Lectures 21-26
Twenty-eigth lecture

How we misremember the past: stories of memory and its malfunctions
Emeritus Professor Elizabeth Minchin OAM FAHA, Australian National University
1 February 2027, Sydney

Taming the Dragon: Medea and Myth-making in South Italian Vase-Painting
Associate Professor Gina Salapata, Massey University
2 February 2026, Auckland

Household archaeology & the domestication of empire – Egyptian landscape at Pompeii
Professor Caitie Barrett, Cornell University
3 February 2025, Canberra

Experiencing Immersion from Antiquity to Modernity
Dr Emma Cole, University of Queensland
13 February 2024, Melbourne

Why Ovid (and Translation) Matters
Professor Stephanie McCarter, The University of the South, Tenessee, USA
10 February 2022, Tasmania

In the Garden of the Fugitives
Dr Estelle Lazer, University of Sydney
8 February 2021, Online

Straying from Myth
Marian Maguire
28 January 2020, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
An edited version of this lecture will appear in Humanities Australia No.12.

At the Crossroads and in the Crosshairs: Class, Ideology and Personality-driven Politics at Rome in the Second Century BC
Associate Professor J. Lea Beness and Associate Professor Tom Hillard, Macquarie University
4 February 2019, Armidale NSW

Twentieth lecture

The force of tradition in early Greek poetry and painting
Associate Professor Anne Mackay, University of Auckland NZ and President of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies
30 January 2018, Brisbane

‘More celebrated than actually known’: Sir John Soane’s Greek vases
Professor Tyler Jo Smith, University of Virginia, USA
18 May 2015, Melbourne

What makes a Roman Goddess? Ovid, the Empress, and female apotheosis in Rome
Emeritus Professor Carole Newlands, University of Colorado, USA
28 January 2015, Adelaide

The gleam through the arch: Homer’s world revisited
Emeritus Professor Trevor Bryce FAHA
9 October 2014, Brisbane

Individuality and innovation in Greek sculpture
Professor Andrew Stewart
18 January 2013, Sydney

Homer and Plato
Professor Richard Hunter FAHA
22 February 2012, Sydney

Consoling yourself and others: Ancient and modern perspectives on managing grief
Professor Han Baltussen FAHA
19 October 2011, Adelaide

Anecdote apophthegm and the ‘real’ Alexander
Professor Brian Bosworth FAHA
13 October 2009, Newcastle

The audience on stage: Rhetoric, emotion, and judgement in Sophoclean theatre
Mr Simon D. Goldhill
21 September 2008, Melbourne

Beyond the stereotypes
Professor Majella Franzmann FAHA
29 November 2007, Sydney

Tenth lecture

How women (re)act in Roman love poetry
Professor Barbara K. Gold
31 January 2006, Hobart

It’s in the post
Professor Pauline Allen FAHA
20 September 2005, Brisbane

From Greece to Rome via southern Italy
Dr Andrew Burnett
16 March 2004, Sydney

Pylades, pantomime and the preservation of tragedy
Emeritus Professor John Jory
2003

Sophocles: The first thousand years
Professor Emerita Patricia Easterling
2002

Excavating and interpreting the Governor’s Palace, Acropolis, Jebel Khalid
Emeritus Professor Graeme Clarke AO FAHA
2001

Comic cuts: Snippets of action on the Greek comic stage
Professor Richard Green
2000

The baroque style in Magna Graecia: Some Important representatives of Apulian vase-painting in the 4th Century BC
Professor Alexander Cambitoglou FAHA
1999

Wealthy Corinth
Dr Elizabeth Pemberton FAHA
24 November 1998, London

The gadfly of Greek history (The infuriatingly opaque nature of inscriptions as sources for Greek history)
Professor Michael J. Osborne FAHA
5 August 1997, Melbourne

Acknowledgement of Country

The Australian Academy of the Humanities recognises Australia’s First Nations Peoples as the traditional owners and custodians of this land, and their continuous connection to country, community and culture.