Professor of Classics G.R.F. (John) Ferrari offers a new framework for understanding different ways in which we communicate with each other. He explores the idea of "intimations": social interactions that approach outright communication but do not quite reach it. Using the metaphor of a communicative scale or switch, which goes from "off" to fully "on,” Ferrari sees intimations lying at various points in between. The Messages We Send: Social Signals and Storytelling  (Oxford, 2017) examines communicative transmissions drawn from both the formal arts (e.g. lyric poetry, novels, film) and daily life (the messages we send with our clothes).

Ferrari is joined by Ellen Oliensis (Classics). After a brief discussion of his work, they open the floor for discussion.