The Archaic Greek elite deployed food-based identity rhetoric that metaphorically exiled those who ate more than their share. A lecture Tuesday, Sept. 26, will examine this history.

Jessica Romney, associate professor of humanities at MacEwan University in Edmonton, will deliver “Placing the Sympotic Elite: Lyric as the Centre of the Polis” at 4:30 p.m. in Katzman Lounge on the ground floor of Vanier Hall.

Dr. Romney’s research focuses on ancient identity in general, particularly as expressed within archaic and classical literature. In Tuesday’s talk, she will explore how in separating “good” political actors in the centre from “bad” at the edges, “male citizens” from “female,” and “Greek” from “non-Greek,” the identity rhetoric around appetite that came out of the symposium, and affiliated genres developed to carry political, moral, gendered, and ethnic connotations.

The event, presented by the Department of Language, Literature, and Cultures and the Classical Association of Canada, is free and open to the public.