Archives: Events

Sien De Groot, Reading and Writing the Areopagite. Book Epigrams as Witnesses to the Transmission of the Corpus Dionysiacum

The fifth lecture in the online lecture series Speaking From the Margins. DBBE Online Lectures, Spring 2021 Series will be given by Sien De Groot (Ghent University).

After finishing her master’s degree in Classical Philology (Ghent University), Sien De Groot obtained a PhD position with the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams. She is currently finishing a doctoral thesis on book epigrams in the Byzantine manuscripts of Ps.-Dionysius the Areopagite.

 

Abstract

When we want to understand how readers in the past approached texts, our source material is limited. We cannot simply ask ancient or medieval readers about their experience. Instead, we have to rely on what they have written about the texts they read, and on traces left in their books. Book epigrams are unique sources in this respect. As poems written to accompany certain main texts, they express the poet’s reaction to these texts. On the other hand, their presence in the manuscripts of the main texts creates a close connection between text and reception, and guides later readers through the book.

In this presentation, I will focus on book epigrams in the Greek manuscripts of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. As we will see, book epigrams preserved in these manuscripts are usually quite short. They convey the main focus of the texts and confirm the author’s pseudonym, but they do not engage thoroughly with the theological framework expressed in the corpus. On the other hand, the book epigrams were important in structuring the manuscripts, and have, most probably, acquired this function at an early stage in the history of the texts. In order to understand how these epigrams functioned within each manuscript and within the manuscript tradition as a whole, we will take into account non-textual evidence, such as the position of epigrams in the manuscripts, the visual presentation, and the moment at which the epigrams were added to the book. With this overview, I hope to shed light on the manifold interactions between readers, texts and books that occurred around the works of Pseudo-Dionysius.

Practical information

Date & time: Tuesday 25 May 2021, 4:00pm (UTC+2, CET)

No registration required. The lecture is freely accessible via Zoom: https://ugent-be.zoom.us/j/93448862359?pwd=TzgyajFZZWsxYXhVTm5zUU1KZ0d5dz09.

  • Meeting ID: 934 4886 2359
  • Passcode: JmVbX7wz

 

Congres: 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

Please register via this link: https://eventmanager.ugent.be/EnchantedReception

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?

For the programme, see https://www.novelsaints.ugent.be/event/enchanted-reception.

Alessandra Palla, Manuscript Tradition and Cultural Perspectives: Investigating the Epigrams AP 2, vv. 372-376 and AP 9, 583

The fourth lecture in the online lecture series Speaking From the Margins. DBBE Online Lectures, Spring 2021 Series will be given by Alessandra Palla (University of Hamburg).

Alessandra Palla graduated from the University of Pisa (Bachelor in “Lettere Classiche” and Master in “Scienze dell’Antichità e Archeologia”) and then received her joint PhD degree in “Scienze dell’Antichità e Archeologia” from the University of Pisa and at the University of Hamburg. She has obtained various international research grants and she is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hamburg, where she is conducting a project that involves editing, translating, and providing a commentary on Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Epistula ad Ammaeum II. At the same time, she is working on the upcoming publication of her PhD thesis regarding the manuscript tradition of Dionysius’ Epistula and on other researches, mainly in the fields of Greek rhetoric, classical philology and Greek literature.

Abstract

The aim of my research is to provide a literary and critical analysis of the epigrams AP 2, 372-376 and AP 9, 583.

The first stage of my paper focuses on an overview regarding the manuscripts in which these epigrams are transmitted, namely the manuscripts that contain Thucydides’ Historiae, the so-called Dio­ny­sius of Halicarnassus’ Opuscula Rhetorica, and (in some cases) Marcellinus’ Vita Thucydidis, along with an anonymous Vita about the historian, and the manuscripts of Anthologia Graeca.

In the second stage, I analyze and reconstruct the epigrams’ transmission, combining textual evidences with other aspects, such as the epigrams’ position within the manuscripts, the cultural context in which they are transmitted and their reception in antiquity.

This research will provide a basis from which to develop a thorough and detailed study not only of the manuscript tradition of the epigrams AP 2, 372-376 and AP 9, 583 but also of their intellectual, cultural and historical function.

Practical information

Date & time: Tuesday 27 April 2021, 4:00pm (UTC+2, CET)

No registration required. The lecture is freely accessible via Zoom: https://ugent-be.zoom.us/j/99198629943?pwd=a0UxaXdFVmR5MXJneEgxRytCY3ZzUT09.

  • Meeting ID: 991 9862 9943
  • Passcode: L75La5fW

 

Tussen school en σχολή

Tussen school en σχολή

De kogel is door de kerk: de paasvakantie start nu een week vroeger. Maar wij maken van de nood een deugd voor onze leerlingen!

Classica Vlaanderen, leerkrachten Grieks en de universiteiten van Gent en Leuven hebben de handen in elkaar geslagen en voor volgende week een speciaal programma voor jullie gemaakt: Tussen school en σχολή.

Elke dag van de week wordt er een bijzondere les aangeboden (zeker gepast voor de derde graad maar iedereen is welkom). Het thema varieert: van Medusa* tot Lineair B, van Menander tot Eerste Hulp van Antieke Filosofen. En uiteraard gaat het niet om leerstof!

Alle leerlingen Grieks kunnen via YouTube aansluiten, en via de chat ook actief deelnemen.

Dat mogen leraren natuurlijk ook. Verspreid deze informatie gerust verder langs digitale weg. Laten we aan Vlaanderen tonen dat Grieks leeft!

Het programma vind je op de site http://waaromgrieks.be/.

Kortom: het slagwoord voor volgende week wordt niet helaas, maar Hellas!

 

* De Medusa-workshop is een uitgebreidere versie van de workshop die op het onderzoeksfestival werd gegeven.

Jacopo Marcon, Παῦλος ὁ μύστης τῶν ἀπορρήτων λόγων: On the Use of the Book Epigrams in New Testament Catenae on Paul

The third lecture in the online lecture series Speaking From the Margins. DBBE Online Lectures, Spring 2021 Series will be given by Jacopo Marcon (University of Birmingham).

In 2018, Jacopo Marcon obtained his MA in Classical Philology cum laude, at the University of Udine, with a thesis in Latin Palaeography (the catalogue of medieval manuscripts of Giusto Fontanini, from the Biblioteca Guarneriana in San Daniele del Friuli). Currently, he is a third-year PhD student at the department of Theology and Religion of the University of Birmingham. He is part of the ERC Project: CATENA: Commentary Manuscripts in the History and Transmission of the New Testament and is currently working on the first-ever critical edition of the Ps. Oecumenian Catena on the Romans (title of the thesis: The Edition of the Ps. Oecumenian Catena on Romans).

Abstract

This presentation aims to investigate the use of epigrams in the Byzantine New Testament Catenae, with a particular focus on the so-called Ps. Oecumenian Catenae on the Pauline Letters. I will analyze the position, the structure, the content, and the function of the byzantine book epigrams to reveal new interesting features in the history of Catenae and commentaries on Paul.

First, I will generally introduce the New Testament Catenae. These are biblical manuscripts with the text of the New Testament alongside the exegetical chain of comments made up of multiple extracts from the Greek Church Fathers. Second, I will consider the so-called paratextual features of the biblical Catenae on the Pauline Epistles, where most of the book epigrams are present (the Euthalian Apparatus and the set of prefaces and subscriptions).

In doing so, I will investigate different types of book epigrams. For the first typology, that of the so-called text- or author-related epigrams, I will examine the cases of Paris, BnF, Gr. 219 (GA 91), 224 (GA 1934), and Coisl. 217 (GA 1972) and Venice, BNM, Gr. Z 34 (coll. 349) (GA 1924). In these manuscripts, alongside the text of the preface on the Pauline epistles in verses (ἡ τῶν ἐπιστολῶν ὑπόθεσις διὰ ἰάμβων), short book epigrams open the text of each of the Epistles.

In some other manuscripts, book epigrams (the so-called image-related epigrams) accompany miniatures of the apostle Paul, and the Greek Church Fathers, such as in the manuscripts Paris, BnF, Gr. 223 (GA 1933), and Gr. 224 (GA 1934)), or can be incorporated into the text of the colophons and notes of property (i.e. the scribe-related epigram in Vatican City, BAV, Bar. Gr. 503 (GA 1952), with the subscription of John Pepagomenos, or the patron-related epigram at the end of Athos, Mone Agiou Paulou 2 (GA 1862), regarding a βασιλισσα Μαρια).

Finally, my presentation explores the content and the textual tradition of some epigrams that have been overlooked, in Paris, BnF, Gr. 237 (GA 82), including one which seems to have been written in Arabic or Turkish but with Greek letters.

Practical information

Date & time: Tuesday 30 March 2021, 4:00pm (UTC+2, CET)

No registration required. The lecture is freely accessible via Zoom: https://ugent-be.zoom.us/j/95155014627?pwd=NjVXWmVQeXl5MzVUWFVjSVpLUUYvQT0

 

Julie Boeten & Sien De Groot – Verzen uit de marge (gehaald): een introductie op Byzantijnse boekepigrammen

Meer dan tweeduizend jaar na hun ontstaan worden de epen van Homerus, de tragedies van Sophocles en de dialogen van Plato nog steeds gretig gelezen. De teksten zijn vandaag overal beschikbaar, slechts een muisklik of een boekhandel van ons verwijderd. Dat is niet altijd zo geweest: het voortbestaan van de klassieke literatuur is te danken aan het – letterlijke – monnikenwerk van middeleeuwse scribenten, die antieke en vroegchristelijke teksten met de hand kopieerden. Daarom maken de grote namen in deze lezing even plaats voor minder bekende figuren, zoals Joasaph de Zondaar, Theodulus de Monnik en Basilius de Kalligraaf. Vaak lieten deze kopiisten tijdens hun werk verzen achter in de marges van de manuscripten, waarin ze zichzelf presenteren, of de auteur van de hoofdtekst prijzen. Deze gedichten noemen we boekepigrammen. In deze lezing verkennen we de Byzantijnse boekcultuur door de lens van die boekepigrammen. We presenteren de verschillende mensen die verbonden waren met manuscripten – de kopiist en de lezer, maar ook de persoon die voor de productie van het boek betaalde, of het klooster dat het boek later bezat. We tonen bovendien wat boekepigrammen ons kunnen vertellen over de waarde die Byzantijnen hechtten aan het manuscript als object. Op die manier hopen we de wereld rond die onbekende middeleeuwse handschriften wat meer tot leven te wekken.

 

Je kan deze lezing hier herbekijken.

Julie Boeten, The Focus in and on Book Epigrams: A Pragmatic Investigation of Object Clitic Pronouns and the Topic-Focus Pair in Byzantine Book Epigrams

The second lecture in the online lecture series Speaking From the Margins. DBBE Online Lectures, Spring 2021 Series will be given by Julie Boeten (Ghent University).

After finishing a Master’s degree in Classical language and literature at Ghent University, Julie Boeten started her PhD at the same alma mater under the wings of the DBBE project in 2015. In 2016, she received her own FWO grant, but remained affiliated with the Database.

Abstract

The book epigrams in the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams have formed the corpus for my doctoral research in the past couple of years. Indeed, a sub-database was even designed specifically for my purposes, which is linked to the larger DBBE database. In this sub-database I have tagged a number of features, one of which are the object clitic pronouns (OCPs). These are the pronouns in their clitic form, when they are in an object position, such as με, σοι or τοι. The reason why these OCPs are an interesting word group to tag, is because they are important signallers of information structure.

The tagging in the DBBE has yielded some interesting results concerning the distribution of OCPs in the Medieval Greek language of book epigrams. It is generally agreed upon that the unmarked, ‘normal’ position of the OCP in Medieval Greek is (immediately) following the verb. However, a large amount of OCPs in the DBBE are preverbal. What exactly is going here?

The so-called focus hypothesis suggests that there may a pragmatic explanation for this. Indeed, focalized information is usually attracted into a preverbal position, which may be the reason for this distribution of OCPs in the DBBE. In this paper, we will have a closer look at this and consider the possible ramifications for Medieval Greek word order in general.

Practical information

Date & time: Tuesday 2 March 2021, 4:00pm (UTC+1, CET)

No registration required. The lecture is freely accessible via Zoom: https://ugent-be.zoom.us/j/93997718555?pwd=MjM0MS9LSkJLY3N5V0M2Zmx2WEZBQT09

  • Meeting ID: 939 9771 8555
  • Passcode: P0uWgw8E