News items and events
2020
2019
2018
Seminar: Andreas Rhoby, An Introduction to Byzantine Inscriptions and Epigrams.
Lecture: Sofia Belioti, The etymological wordplay in the epigrams of Gregory of Nazianzus.
Lecture: Georgi Parpulov, Byzantine Scribes and their Paratexts.
Abstract:
The study of paratexts (additions) in medieval Greek manuscripts has made great advances over the past decade. My paper will discuss some of the ways in which such paratexts were selected and transmitted from one manuscript to another.
About the speaker:
Georgi Parpulov studied history at the University of Sofia and art history at the University of Chicago. He subsequently did curatorial work at the Walters Art Museum, the J Paul Getty Museum and the British Museum, and taught at the University of Oxford.
2017
2016
Lecture: Krystina Kubina, The many ways of reading poetry in late Byzantium: Manuel Philes' laudatory poems.
Abstract:
In recent years, scholarship has turned its attention to the historical setting, the Sitz im Leben, of Byzantine poetry. In this context, the most prolific poet of the early 14th century, Manuel Philes, was taken into account. However, due to the vast number of texts transmitted under his name (more than 30,000 verses in more than 150 manuscripts!) no attempt has been made to look at the full picture of how his poetry was read. Without aiming at a complete evaluation, I shall offer an overview of the ways of reception. Philes’ poems were read in a variety of different contexts: from private readings of verse letters over performed enkomia to epigrams inscribed on public buildings. The form of reception also altered the way of how Philes was perceived as an author: from self-conscious reflections of an authorial ‘I’ in letters to the total absence of the author in inscriptions. The example of Manuel Philes shows the wide presence of poetry (and literature in general) in Late Byzantine society.
About the speaker:
Krystina Kubina is a doctoral candidate at the University of Vienna working on encomiastic poetry of the early Palaiologan period and visiting scholar at the Ghent Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams project.
Lecture: Andreas Rhoby, The Vienna Inscriptional Epigrams Project.
Andreas Rhoby stelt het vierde volume van zijn reeks 'Byzantinische Epigramme' voor, dat binnenkort verschijnt bij de Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Het volume is gewijd aan epigrammen bij miniaturen, en dus nauw verwant aan het Gentse DBBE project, bij wie dr Rhoby te gast is.