Imperial gems decorate medieval Christian reliquaries, Roman history is invoked by painters in the spirit of revolution; theorists and ideologues insist upon Greek naturalism as a universal model of excellence. These examples and countless others bear witness to the historical survival—down to the present day—of symbols, beliefs, modes of thought, and structures of narrative forged in the cultural crucible that surrounded the ancient Mediterranean. The classical legacy, as played out in every quarrel between "ancients" and "moderns," was itself already mediated by still more ancient "antiquities." The Greeks, Etruscans, Romans, and their neighbors in North Africa and the Middle East all possessed their own conceptions of a deep past, which they too manipulated in the name of the present.

The familiar melancholy that has attended the recollection of antiquity as fragment and ruin stands in contrast to the vitality of its traditions as they persist in popular forms almost beneath the level of conscious reflection. One has only to turn to the astrological forecasts in the daily newspaper to encounter the living relics of ancient magic and superstition. When Renaissance poets and artists embraced the rediscovered images of the Olympian gods, these entities did not relinquish their longstanding place in the social imaginary as celestial powers governing human affairs. Oral, divinatory, and festive traditions have played parts in the persistence of antiquity every bit as important as literate ones, often continuing unabated when textual transmission falters. Each repetition and adaptation of some element of classical culture represents its concrete survival into a new era, such that we ourselves live within a web of thoughts, beliefs, and mental associations many centuries old—and this deep continuity can even be obscured by self-conscious episodes of "revival" or "rebirth." As a theme, the persistence of antiquity can bear on research in nearly all places and periods within the traditions of Western culture and in every setting where those traditions have been exported and contested.

In 2005–2006, the Getty Research Institute continues to focus on the concept of duration and welcomes applications from researchers in the arts, humanities, and social sciences whose projects engage the persistence of antiquity in the visual arts. This scholar year celebrates the reopening of the Getty Villa in Malibu, with its notable collections of ancient Mediterranean antiquities, and the inauguration of exhibitions, programs, and performances related to the classical world. Scholars in residence at the Getty Research Institute will find a wealth of resources bearing directly on this theme in the collections of the Getty Villa, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the special collections of the Institute's Research Library.

Ann Jensen Adams is associate professor in the department of history of art and architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The Presence of History, Portraits in Time. Perceptions of History and Time in the 17th-Century Dutch History Portrait
(September – June)

Ian Balfour is professor of English at York University in Toronto.
The Language of the Sublime
(September – June)

Brigitte Bourgeois is curator of the Archaeological and Ethnographical Section at the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées in Paris.
France, a "New Greece?" Political Revolution and Restoration of the Antique: A Shift of Power from Rome to Paris (1760–1830)
(September – June)

Robin Cormack is professor of the history of art at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.
The Icon
(September – June)

Yannis Hamilakis is senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of Southampton in Highfield, Southampton, UK.
The Social Life of Ruins: The Persistence of Classical Antiquities in Modernity
(September – June)

Stephen Jaeger is Gutgsell Professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Charisma and Art
(September – June)

Pamela Long is an independent scholar residing in Washington, D.C.
Engineering the Eternal City: Power, Knowledge, and Urbanization in Late-Sixteenth-Century Rome
(September – June)

Todd Olson (Consortium Scholar) is associate professor of art history at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
Caravaggio's Pitiful Relics: Painting History after Iconoclasm
(September – June)

Susan Siegfried is professor of art history and women's studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Ingres and Reconfigurations of the Classical Tradition in the Nineteenth Century
(September – June)

Charles Stewart is a reader in anthropology at University College, London.
From Leda and the Swan to Alien Abduction: The Erotic Nightmare in Western Culture
(September – June)

Irene Aghion is chief curator at the Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, in Paris.
Count Caylus and the Classical Legacy in 18th-Century England: His Influence on Painters and Potters
(January – March)

Frederick Bohrer is associate professor of art and archaeology at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland.
Photography and Archaeology: Durations of Image and Object
(January – June)

Jose Burucúa is a professor at the Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales at the Universidad Nacional de San Martin in Buenos Aires.
The Notion of Alterity and the Case of Ulysses' History Between Pinturicchio and John Flaxman
(January – March)

Anne Carson is professor of classics and comparative literature at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Unpleasantness of Euripides (Translation and Essays)
(March – June)

Giovanna Ceserani is assistant professor in the department of classics at Stanford University in Stanford, California.
Archaeologies of Magna Graecia: Scholarship at the Margins of Modern Hellenism
(April – June)

Whitney Davis is professor of history and theory of ancient and modern art at the University of California, Berkeley.
Antiquity and Models of Art History
(September – December)

Rhonda Garelick is associate professor of French at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut.
Antigone in Vogue: Coco Chanel on the Neoclassical Stage
(September – December)

Thomas A. Heslop is senior lecturer in the history of art and architecture at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England.
Invasion and Imagination: Art and Antiquity in England, 1050–1135
(January – March)

Helen Langdon is an independent scholar and writer residing in London.
The Philosopher's Grove: Representations of Philosophers in 17th-Century European Art
(April – June)

Jacqueline Lichtenstein is a professor of philosophy of art at the Université Paris IV-Sorbonne.
The Reference to Antiquity in the Birth of a New Discourse of Art: France vs. Germany in the 18th Century.
(April–June)

Gérard Mairet is a professor of political philosophy at Université Paris VIII and head of doctoral studies in political philosophy at Université Paris VIII-Saint Denis.
The Course of Empire. Antiquity, Europe, American Destiny
(April – June)

Jerzy Miziołek is associate professor of art history and the classical tradition in European art at the Institute of Archaeology at the University of Uniwersytet Warszawski.
Count Stanislas K. Potocki's Vision of Antiquity: An Attempt at Restituting Pliny's Villa
(January – March)

Spyros Papapetros is lecturer in the School of Architecture at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.
Aby Warburg's Project for a Monistic Psychology of Art
(April – June)

Ulrich Pfisterer is associate professor of art history at the University of Hamburg in Germany.
Love, Procreation and Birth. Theories and Metaphors of Artistic Production in Early Modern Europe
(April – June)

James Porter is a professor in the department of classical studies and program in comparative literature at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Homer: The Very Idea
(April – June)

Alain Schnapp is professor of classical archaeology at Université Paris-Panthéon-Sorbonne.
A Comparative History of Ruins
(January – March)

Nina Dubin is a Ph.D. candidate in the history of art at the University of California, Berkeley.
Futures and Ruins: The Painting of Hubert Robert
(September – June)

Hans–Caspar Meyer is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Archeology at Wolfson College, Oxford University.
The Archaeology of the Hellenistic Age, 1833–1914: The Discovery, Display and Scholarship of Greek Antiquities of the Time of Alexander to Augustus
(September – June)

Veronica della Dora is a recent graduate of the geography department at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Mapping Landscape of Myth in the Eastern Mediterranean
(September – June)

Raphael Cuir is an independent scholar who received his Ph.D. at l'Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris.
Duration, The Persistence of Antiquity in Renaissance Anatomy
(September – June)

Daniel McLean is a lecturer in classical studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Refiguring Socrates: Comedy and Corporeality in the Socratic Tradition
(September – June)

Angela Windholz is a research fellow at the Kunsthistoriches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut.
The Foreign Academies in Rome between Artistic Self-Definition and National Representation
(September – June)

Jonathan Alexander is the Sherman Fairchild Professor of Fine Arts at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University.
(January – March)

Andrea Bacchi is the head of the art history department at the Università di Trento, Italy.
(July – September)

Dana Baldwin is the director of education at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine.
(October – December)

David Bomford is the senior restorer of paintings at the National Gallery in London.
(July – September)

Penelope Curtis is a curator at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds.
(April – June)

Monique C. Fischer is the senior photograph conservator at the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover, Massachusetts.
(January – March)

Jo Hedley is the acting head of collections at the Wallace Collection in London.
(January – March)

Martin Royalton-Kisch is the senior curator of prints and drawings at the British Museum in London.
(October – December)

David Travis is the curator of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago.
(October – December)