Did Apuleius read ancient Greek love novels? The question is asked by Olivier Demerre (Ghent, Novel Saints), Rachel Bird and Ian Repath (Swansea, Kyknos) in a panel for the next Celtic Conference (Coimbra, 11–14/07). Speakers also include Nicolo D’Alconzo and Claire Jackson, members of our research group. Further information and the timetable can be found here. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Category: Conference
Workshop: The Reuse of Ancient and Late Antique Narratives in the Medieval Middle East and Beyond
We are delighted to invite you to a one-day workshop on The Reuse of Ancient and Late Antique Narratives in the Medieval Middle East and Beyond.
The workshop will be held in the Zaal August Vermeylen in Het Pand (Onderbergen 1, Gent, Belgium) on January 31st, 2023, and will be streamed online via Microsoft Teams.
The workshop focuses on the reception of ancient and late antique narratives across languages and cultures in the Middle Ages and brings together participants from Latin, Greek, Middle Eastern, Iranian, and Georgian studies.
Please register here by January 25th. Please email Mara Nicosia (mara.nicosia@ugent.be) if you have any queries.
Programme
9.00-9.10 Introduction
Work-in-progress session 1
9.10-9.30 Ingela Nilsson (Uppsala University): “Reuse, translation or reception of ancient texts? Methodological challenges”.
9.30-9.50 Lilli Hölzlhammer (Uppsala University): “Christianity vs Homer: the use of quotes and references in Symeon Seth’s Stephanites and Ichnelates”
9.50-10.10 Mara Nicosia (Ghent University): “Homer, Heliodorus and Pseudo-Callisthenes in Antony of Tagrit’s Rhetoric”
10.10-10.30 Discussion
10.30-11.00 Coffee
Lecture 1
11.00-11.40 Teddy Fassberg (Tel Aviv University): “Greek novels and narratives in Arabic”
Work-in-progress session 2
11.40-12.00 Uffe Holmsgaard Eriksen (University of Southern Denmark): “A broader case of reuse: epic and drama in Byzantine hymns”
12.00-12.20 Christian Høgel (Lund University): “The conditions of a Georgian-Greek translator. The Byzantinization of the Barlaam and Ioasaph story”
12.20-12.40 Discussion
12.40-14.10 Lunch
Lecture 2
14.10-14.50 İpek Hüner Cora (Boğaziçi University): “Becoming Ottoman: How an ancient tale gets native in the Ottoman literary world”
Work-in-progress session 3
14.50-15.10 Simon Ford (Ghent University): “An ancient story in a medieval manuscript: the Syriac riddle of the sphynx”
15.10-15.30 Ali B. Langroudi (Göttingen University): “Jesus’ bat among exegetical, apocryphal, and polemical echoes”
15.30-15.50 Lingli Li (Göttingen University): “Sanskrit narratives in Persianate India”
15.50-16.10 Discussion
16.10-16.40 Coffee
Lecture 3
16.40-17.20 Cameron Cross (University of Michigan): “Grammars of globality” (online)
17.20-17.30 Conclusion
Organisers: Mara Nicosia, Koen De Temmerman, Ingela Nilsson.
The workshop is funded both by the European Research Council through the Novel Echoes project hosted at Ghent University and by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond through the “Retracing Connections: Byzantine Storyworlds in Greek, Arabic, Georgian, and Old Slavonic (c. 950 – c. 1100)” programme hosted at Uppsala University.
Workshop: The Politics of Style in Ancient Rhetoric and Oratory
Style matters. In his Rhetoric, Aristotle argues that a speaker should adopt a style that fits the context and circumstances of the speech. For each species of rhetoric, a different lexis is appropriate – political speakers cannot address their audience in the same way as epideictic orators and vice versa (Rh. 3.12.1). This workshop investigates the importance of style in political speeches. How did political speakers (broadly defined) employ stylistic features to achieve their rhetorical agendas?
The OIKOS Research group Ancient Rhetoric and Aesthetics, in cooperation with the International Society for the History of Rhetoric, cordially invites you to the workshop ‘The Politics of Style in Ancient Rhetoric and Oratory.’ The event takes place on the 9th of December in Ghent.
The workshop can be attended both physically and digitally. If you are interested in attending, please email Thierry.Oppeneer@UGent.be before the 2nd of December specifying whether you would like to participate in person or digitally and you will receive the necessary information.
Programme
12.30-13.30 Lunch
13.30-14.15 Christos Kremmydas (London): ‘Logoi Enteuktikoi and their Style in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods’
14.15-14.55 Olivier Demerre (Gent): ‘Stylistic Debates and Persuasion in Ancient Greek Novels’
14.55-15.10: Break
15.10-15.50 Thierry Oppeneer (Gent): ‘The Political Uses of Imperial Greek Rhetoric: Hermogenes’ Idea- and Stasis-Theory in the Popular Assembly’
15.50-16.30 Leanne Jansen (Leiden): ‘Ciceronian Words, Demosthenic Style: Cassius Dio’s Rendition of the Amnesty Speech of 44 BCE’
16.30-16.45: Break
16.45-17.30 Henriette van der Blom (Birmingham): ‘Elocutio in Roman Deliberative Speeches: Theory and Practice’ [Via Teams]
17.30 Drinks
The organisers and co-ordinators,
Casper de Jonge, Koen De Temmerman and Thierry Oppeneer
Workshop: Ancient concepts of fiction and narrative in the imperial period and late antiquity
Dear all,
We are delighted to invite you to a one-day workshop organized by the Novel Echoes ERC-project at Ghent University, as part of the Ghent-Kent-Lille cross-border programme, taking place on November 18th 2022.
Ancient Concepts of Fiction and Narrative in the Imperial Period and Late Antiquity
Fiction Across Boundaries
18th November 2022
This is the fourth and final meeting of a series of workshops co-organised by the universities of Ghent, Kent, and Lille organized with the aim of generating new insights on the distinctions between true, false, and plausible narratives in the Mediterranean region 100-700 CE, a period of transition from pluralist polytheism to a Christian Empire and from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. This period saw a flourishing of different kinds of narratives with differing claims to truth. How do such attitudes to truth, fiction and lies and their interrelationship alter during this period and how is this manifest in the written narratives?
Following the previous meetings in Ghent (4th February), Kent (25th February) and Lille (13th May), this meeting aims to continue the discussions developed throughout the year about different manifestations of fiction across the imperial period into Late Antiquity and beyond, with the particular goal of breaking down boundaries between Christian and pagan approaches to fiction. By allowing for a diversity of voices and a breadth of approaches to this topic, these workshops aim to develop a more nuanced and a more generous conception of fiction in postclassical antiquity and to point towards new directions for future research on this theme.
Programme (all times CET):
9:45-10:30: Janet Downie (North Carolina, Chapel Hill): Longus as Theorist of Fictional Worlds: the Mythos of Chloe Reconsidered
10:30-11:15: Thomas Lorson (Lille): Mormo, the spirit of Lucianic fiction
11:15-11:45: break
11:45-12:30: Olivier Demerre (Ghent): (Sophistic) rhetoric and emotional control in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe
12:30-14:00: lunch
14:00-14:45: Benjamin De Vos (Ghent): The Moral and Metaliterary Depth of Mattidia’s Role in the Pseudo-Clementines: Christian Fiction and the Notion of ‘Dehellenization’
14:45-15:30: Charis Messis (Athens): Les îles désertes dans la fiction byzantine (du roman au récit hagiographique) – The desert islands in Byzantine fiction (from the novel to the hagiographic narrative) [in French]
15:30-16:00: break
16:00-16:45: Anna Lefteratou (Cambridge): Do we need the happy end? Eudocia’s Cyprian and Justa and Musaeus’ Hero and Leander.
16:45-17:00: break
17:00-18:00 Final Discussion
18:00: Drinks
The workshop will be held in-person at the Oude Infirmerie at Het Pand (Onderbergen 1, Gent), and will be streamed online via Microsoft Teams. Please register via this link by the end of Wednesday November 16th to register and receive the link for the online workshop. If you would like to attend the workshop in-person please contact us as soon as possible.
The workshop series is organized by Ruth Webb (Lille), Anne Alwis (Kent), and Koen De Temmerman (Ghent), with funding generously provided by the 3i research fund of the University of Lille and the European Research Council through the Novel Echoes project hosted at Ghent University.
Please don’t hesitate to get in touch (claire.jackson@ugent.be or nicolo.dalconzo@ugent.be) if you have any queries, and we hope to see many of you there.
All the best,
Dr. Claire Rachel Jackson
Postdoctoral Researcher, ‘Novel Echoes’ project
Blandijnberg 2
9000 Ghent
Belgium
WORKSHOP: Ancient concepts of fiction and narrative in the imperial period and late antiquity
Ancient Concepts of Fiction and Narrative in the Imperial Period and Late Antiquity
Fiction in Transition
Date: 4th February 2022
Participants may access the recordings of this workshop here.
We are delighted to invite you to a one-day online workshop organized by the Novel Echoes ERC-project at Ghent University, as part of the Ghent-Kent-Lille cross-border research programme, taking place on February 4th 2022.
This is the first of a series of three workshops co-organised by the universities of Ghent, Kent, and Lille, organized with the aim of generating new insights on the distinctions between true, false, and plausible narratives in the Mediterranean region 100-700 CE, a period of transition from pluralist polytheism to a Christian Empire and from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. This period saw a flourishing of different kinds of narratives with differing claims to truth. How do such attitudes to truth, fiction, and lies and their interrelationship alter during this period and how is this manifest in the written narratives?
This first workshop explores in particular texts from Late Antiquity as an inflection point for these kinds of concerns. Recent scholarship has done much to encourage a more diverse and productive approach to pagan and Christian literature rather than seeing the two as a strict dichotomy, but more work remains to be done on both the sheer breadth of underexplored texts from this period and the diversity of their engagement with questions of truth and falsehood. This workshop aims to explore this crucial transition period by looking at a variety of works which test the boundaries of such binary periodizations and open up a more nuanced understanding of fiction between and across such diverse narratives.
Please email Claire Rachel Jackson (Claire.Jackson@UGent.be) and/or Nicolò D’Alconzo (Nicolo.DAlconzo@UGent.be) to register and receive the link for the online workshop.
The poster may be downloaded here.
Programme: (All times given are CET)
9:45-10:00 Introduction
10:00-10:45 Claire Rachel Jackson (Ghent): ‘Fiction, Plausibility, and Miracles in Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Macrina’
10:45-11:30 Rachel Bird (Swansea): ‘From the Divine to the Ridiculous? Narrative Technique and the Suspension of Disbelief in The Life of St Mary of Egypt’
11:30-12:00 Break
12:00-12:45 Jason König (St Andrews): ‘Autopsy and truth in The History of the Monks in Egypt, Palladius’ Lausiac History, and Theodoret’s Religious History’
12:45-14:00 Break
14:00-14:45 Katherine Krauss (Oxford): ‘Fiction in the Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri’
14:45-15:30 Nicola Schmid-Dümmler (Zürich): ‘Revisiting Musaeus and Achilles Tatius: Seductive narratorial voices’
15:30-16:00 Break
16:00-16:45 Julie Van Pelt (Ghent): ‘Journeys Between History and Fiction: the Life of Makarios the Roman’
16:45-17:30 Stephen Trzaskoma (New Hampshire): ‘Praeparatio Martyriologica: Displays of Truth and Novelistic Virtue by Sts. Kerkyra and Romanos’
17:30-18:00 Round up discussion
18:00-19:00 Virtual drinks reception
The next workshop will be organized at the University of Kent on February 25th 2022, with details to be circulated in the near future.
The workshop series is organized by Ruth Webb (Lille), Anne Alwis (Kent), and Koen De Temmerman (Ghent), with funding generously provided by the 3i research fund of the University of Lille.
Conference: The 6th International Conference on the Ancient Novel
We are delighted to announce that the sixth International Conference on the Ancient Novel will take place in Ghent 21-24 September 2022. All information can be found on our ican webpage: www.novelsaints.ugent.be/ican-vi.
Conference: Enchanted reception: Religion and the supernatural in medieval Troy narratives
Enchanted reception: Religion and the supernatural in medieval Troy narratives
Programme
Date: Thursday-Friday, 3-4 June 2021
Organizer: Novel Echoes: Tine Scheijnen and Ellen Söderblom Saarela
Registrations have now closed.
Participants can join via this page: https://www.novelsaints.ugent.be/enchanted-reception
Enchanted Reception is a two-day workshop with the aim of exploring the place of enchantment, myth, and religion in both Eastern and Western medieval narratives about Troy, or narratives that are influenced by motifs related or parallel to the narrative of the Trojan war. Together with scholars specialising in the different language traditions of medieval literature, we aim to explore the following questions from a transnational approach:
• How did contemporary (e.g. literary and socio-cultural) developments influence medieval adaptations of the supernatural and pagan religion in medieval Troy narratives?
• What role does the Troy motif play in other literary works?
• How are rationalization and “Christianization” used to deal with the medieval unease evoked by certain aspects of ancient mythology?
• From a comparative perspective, how can we map such processes transnationally, e.g. in the different language and literature traditions of the medieval world?
• How do these questions engage with themes such as gender, sexuality, ethnicity and cross-cultural connections?
Day 1
13.30 13.45 Welcome (Koen De Temmerman)
Session 1 Enchanting Amazons
Chair: Adam Goldwyn
13.45 14.15 Ellen Söderblom Saarela (Ghent University)
“Amazoneises, puceles corteises”: Interpreting the Amazon’s Place in Courtly Romance
14.15 14.45 Hilke Hoogenboom (Leiden University)
Femme Fatale: Penthesilea and the Last Stand of Chivalry in Guido delle Colonne’s Historia Destructionis Troiae
14.45 15.15 Allison Treese (University of Leicester)
“O flower of chivalry”: Christine de Pizan and the Christianization of Amazons
15.15 15.45 Discussion
15.45 16.00 Break
Session 2 Troy in the New World
Chair: Nicola McDonald
16.00 16.30 Megan Moore (University of Missouri)
The Mediterranean & the Translation of Emotional Communities: Troy & Legacies of Heroism
16.30 17.00 Susannah Wright (Harvard University)
Troy Translated, Troy Transformed: Case Studies in Medieval Celtic Literature
17.00 17.30 Tine Scheijnen (Ghent University)
Facing the Other: Medieval Reconceptions of Trojan Identity
17.30 18.00 Discussion
18.00 19.00 Breakout reception (using the platform “Wonder”)
Day 2
Session 3 Reshapings of Troy
Chair: Evelien Bracke
13.30 14.00 José Miguel de Toro (Catholic University of Concepción)
The War of Troy in Encyclopedic Literature: the Case of Lambert’s Liber floridus
14.00 14.30 Marco Brunetti (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Insititut-für-Kunstgeschichte)
Figural and Literary Functional Recoveries of the Trojan Myths from Late Antiquity to Renaissance Age
14.30 15.00 Sophie Schoess (University of St Andrews)
Objects of Worship: The Place of Idols in Mediaeval Troy Narratives
15.00 15.30 Discussion
15.30 15.45 Break
Session 4 Byzantine Enchantments
Chair: Megan Moore
15.45 16.15 Adam Goldwyn (North Dakota State University)
The Sexual Politics of Myth: Rewriting and Unwriting Women in Byzantine Accounts of the Trojan War
16.15 16.45 Baukje van den Berg (Central European University)
Supernatural Rhetoric and Gendered Eloquence: Eustathios and Tzetzes on Hermes, Athena, and the Muses
16.45 17.15 Agnese Fontana (University of Genoa)
What If King David Had Fought at Troy? The Trojan Narrative in Byzantine World Chronicles (VI-XII Century): Religious, Historical and Political Issues
17.15 17.45 Discussion
17.45 – 18.00 End discussion
Chair: Ellen and Tine
For more information, please email Dr Tine Scheijnen (tine.scheijnen@ugent.be) or Dr Ellen Söderblom Saarela (ellen.soderblomsaarela@ugent.be).
This workshop is organized as part of and supported by the ERC project Novel Echoes and the FWO project The romance between Greece and the west (see https://www.novelsaints.ugent.be/).
Rhetoric and Morality. OIKOS (Ancient Rhetoric & Aesthetics) and ISHR Benelux colloquium. Co-organization with Bé Breij and Casper de Jonge.
Rhetoric and Morality. OIKOS (Ancient Rhetoric & Aesthetics) and ISHR Benelux colloquium. Co-organization with Bé Breij and Casper de Jonge.
Work-in-progress workshop: Speeches. Oikos (Ancient Rhetoric & Aesthetics)
Op donderdag 13 juni 2019 zal de onderzoeksgroep Ancient Rhetoric and Aesthetics weer bijeenkomen. Deze keer organiseren wij een workshop over ’speeches’, met vijf interessante lezingen. De bijeenkomst zal plaatsvinden in Gent.
Holy Hero(in)es. Literary Constructions of Heroism in Late Antique and Early Medieval Hagiography
Holy Hero(in)es. Literary Constructions of Heroism in Late Antique and Early Medieval Hagiography,