Mission

---

A Conference Co-Sponsored by the Hall Center and the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture
Saturday, September 21, 2002 at the Dallas Institute Conference Center, Dallas, Texas

Since the story of Rome first entered the Western imagination through Virgil’s epic poem the Aeneid, leadership as a conflict between private desire and the public good has been central to our understanding of the “civilizational ideal.” Though Rome may never have realized that ideal, Virgil’s image of the leader in crisis has endured, with particular poignancy for Britain during the epoch of its empire and now for the United States in its emergence as “the world’s only superpower.”
--Larry Allums, Director of the Dallas Institute, co-author of The Epic Cosmos (Studies in Genre), 2000.

What has ancient Rome to do with the modern West in terms of leadership and the prospects for civilization? In this one-day event, faculty from the Dallas Institute and the University of Kansas considered the relevance of civilization and empire in the context of literary and historical figures, Aeneas, George Washington, and Winston Churchill, and of present-day leaders. Formats included lecture, discussion, film, and a dramatic reading from the Aeneid.

The main speakers were:

Stanley Lombardo, Classics, KU, “Aeneas in Crisis” and “Aeneas and Dido: A Dramatic Reading.”

Virginia Arbery, Political Philosophy, Dallas Institute, “The Mask of George Washington: Labor, Pietas, and Fatum.”

Victor Bailey, History, KU, “Winston Churchill: What Made Him the Unquestioned Tribal Leader in Britain’s Moment of Crisis?”

This event was the first in what is to be an annual collaboration between the Hall Center and the Dallas Institute. The next event will be on the KU campus.

The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture exists to care for the actual things of the urban world. In some instances, these things are visible - the city, education, architecture, medicine, art, technology, money. Equally important are the invisible forms within which life takes place and has meaning - friendship, the soul, taste, imagination, community, intellectual life, ritual, leadership. Through its courses of study, public seminars, publications, conferences, and civic involvement, The Dallas Institute brings thought, imagination, language, and sensibility to bear on the convergence between the visible shaping of the world and the permanent values necessary for the crafting of culture.