Category: Talk

The Novel Echoes group is happy to invite you to listen to Rafael Semedo, who will give a paper on Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica on Monday 25^th of March, 4pm in Camelot.

Title: Live Fast, Die Young: Penthesilea’s Aristeia in Quintus’ Posthomerica 1

 Abstract: Each of the 14 Books of Quintus’ Posthomerica is centered around a single character or event – it is therefore often referred to as an episodic epic. Book 1 revolves around the figure of Penthesilea, the queen of the Amazons, who, along with her female warriors, arrives at Priam’s citadel to boost spirits of the Trojans and encourage them back into the fight. The Quintean narrator accentuates her protagonism using an important traditional epic device, the aristeia, which is comprised of a series of type-scenes, including her arming, departure for battle, and killing frenzy on the battlefield. The outcome is her own death at the hands of Achilles. In this paper, we explore the strategies of the Quintean narrator to provide this female warrior with a solid characterization, which, in turn, also contributes to the overall portrayal of Achilles, the central figure of Books 1-5 as a whole. I argue that Penthesilea serves as a character doublet of Achilles, a miniature version of the Iliadic warrior, and her death at his hands actually foreshadows his own demise by the arrows of Apollo in Book 3.

Rafael de A. Semêdo, São Paulo Research Foundation, University of São Paulo; Visiting Ph.D. Scholar, University of Amsterdam

The second international conference on Early Christian Literature, Late Antiquity and Byzantine Hagiography this year is on the theme of ‘Imitationes Christi and women martyrs’ starts in Valencia. Three of our researchers will be presenting! Koen De Temmerman is one of the keynote speakers, Julie Van Pelt is a member of the Comité Científico and is giving a paper, and Emma Huig is also presenting her research.

More information here.

Together with Professor Riccardo Contini, Mara Nicosia is the organizer of the atelier “Lexicologie et lexicographie syriaque” at the 13^th Symposium Syriacum (Paris, 4^th-9^th July 2022). More information soon.

Dr Mara Nicosia will talk about ‘The Hellenistic Enkyklios Paideia (‘Circular Education’) in the Syriac World: The Role of Rhetoric in Shaping the ‘Classic’’ for the ERC-project PAIXUE at Edinburgh University. More information here.

The Literature Department invites you to the following lecture on Thursday 17th December at 12 noon. Claire Jackson and Koen De Temmerman will introduce the Novel Echoes project: “Novel Echoes: Receptions of the Ancient Novel in Postclassical Traditions”.

More information and the zoom link on the website of the Literature Department: https://www.letterkunde.ugent.be/nl/agenda/5239.

Organizer: LSW

Margaret Mullett (Queen’s University Belfast) Performability, Lament, and the Christos Paschon’. (Lezing “Meet the PhD Jury”).

• Link

Owen Hodkinson (University of Leeds): “The reception of Philostratus’ Letters in Oxford ‘Uranian’ circles”

Panagiotis Roilos (Harvard University) : “Byzantines at play: Aristophanes in 12th-century Constantinople”

Uffe Holmsgaard Eriksen (Uppsala University, Sweden) : “Spatializing Biblical Narratives in Byzantium”