“Imagines 8. Pagan Pornotopias? The Reception of Antiquity in Eroticism and Pornography”

“Imagines 8. Pagan Pornotopias? The Reception of Antiquity in Eroticism and Pornography” was the eighth conference organised by Imagines Project. It took place 27th, 28th and 29th September 2023 at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and its conference programme covered a total of 18 papers grouped into five panels. These contributions were focused, as referred to by the event’s title, on the reception of the ancient world —especially Greece and Rome— in erotic and pornographic products ranging from the 19th century to today. With this topic at the core, and working with concepts such as “pornotopias” in Western popular culture, ancient Greece’s role in the shaping and legitimisation of homosexuality, or the characterisation of ancient Rome as inherently opposed to Christianity in erotic moral terms, the workshop’s aim was to explore the degree in which Antiquity and its conscious, unconscious, direct or indirect reception have shaped the construction of not just eroticism and pornography, but desire, attraction, sexuality, sexual orientations and identities, and performance gender.