NORMAN, OKLA. – A President’s Associates lecture and dinner will highlight the opening of the art exhibit, "Immortales: The Hall of the Emperors of the Capitoline Museums, Rome" on Thursday, Sept. 3. Immediately following the lecture, guests will preview the exhibition in the Lissa and Cy Wagner Gallery at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art.
"Immortales: The Hall of Emperors of the Capitoline Museums, Rome" brings to the United States for the first time a selection of 20 busts from the collection of the world’s oldest museum, the Capitoline in Rome. The exhibition offers a survey of Roman portraiture from the age of Augustus (1st century, B.C.) to the late Roman Empire (5th century, A.D.). Sculpted busts of emperors, empresses and patricians reveal how portraits helped craft private and public images of distinguished individuals for ancient Roman audiences as well as for posterity. The exhibition will be on display through Dec. 6, 2015.
Award-winning author and classical historian, Kyle Harper, OU Senior Vice President and Provost, will give a keynote address on “A New Lesson from the Immortal Empire of Rome” at the dinner. A faculty member in OU’s Department of Classics and Letters, Harper also serves as director of OU’s Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage. He graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Letters from OU and then earned his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University in 2007. A revised version of his dissertation was published by Cambridge University Press as Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275-425. The book was awarded the James Henry Breasted Prize by the American Historical Association and the Outstanding Publication Award from the Classical Association of the Middle West and South. Harper’s research has focused on the social and economic history of the period spanning the Roman Empire and the early middle ages. He teaches a range of courses on Greek and Roman history, early Christianity, late antiquity and ancient law.
"Immortales: The Hall of Emperors of the Capitoline, Museums, Rome" exhibition is made possible by the generous support of Enel Green Power North America, a leading owner and operator of renewable energy plants in North America. In Oklahoma the company owns and operates four wind farms, with two additional sites under construction.
Limited seating at the dinner is available by reservation for OU students, faculty and staff, with overflow seating available to the public. For reservations, more information and accommodations on the basis of disability, please call OU Public Affairs at (405) 325-3784.
