Archives: Events

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!

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 31^st, 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 25^th. 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.

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

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 18^th 2022.

Ancient Concepts of Fiction and Narrative in the Imperial Period and Late Antiquity

Fiction Across Boundaries

18^th 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 (4^th February), Kent (25^th February) and Lille (13^th 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 16^th 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