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Symposium — Miracles and Wonders in Antiquity and Byzantium

University of Cyprus, 16-18 October 2014

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Miracles and Wonders in Antiquity and Byzantium

                               

Tales of miracle and wonder decorate both ancient and Byzantine literature and seem to have had a great impact upon ancient and Byzantine thought. A strong interest in the wondrous is already apparent in the works of Homer and Hesiod. However, a more organized recording of marvels is detected much later, in Herodotus’s time, when marvelous stories and travel accounts of exotic places and peoples are increasingly produced. From the era of Alexander and onwards such stories are recruited by historians and rhetors in an attempt to apotheose the ideal ruler.

Between the third century BC and the third century AD, the genre of paradoxography, collections of stories relating strange events and phenomena, achieves great popularity, and influences another new genre, the Hellenistic novel. At about the same time, a number of stories circulate that relate the miraculous healings of suffering people who practice incubation in Asclepian temples. Later the practice of incubation is taken over by Christian pilgrims who are cured by saints. Miraculous healings and other types of miracles that are associated with a particular Christian shrine become the material of a new genre, the miracle collection which is cultivated throughout the Byzantine era. Miracle stories are included in all Byzantine hagiographical genres, since they constitute the strongest sign of holiness. Miracles and wonders are also found in profane Byzantine genres, such as chronicles and romances.

Despite the fact that marvel literature enjoyed such a high popularity in antiquity and Byzantium, it has been mostly dismissed by modern scholars as debased, boring and even unintelligible, an attitude that has condemned this literature to obscurity.

The conference’s main aims are to bring to light miracle and wonder literature and to open up new avenues of approach. Topics of exploration may include:

• Literary Theoretical Approaches

• Cultural Studies

• Psychological Approaches

• Comparative Literary Studies

• Linguistics

Specialists are invited to submit a thirty-minute paper in English on a relevant topic.

Due to budgetary constraints, the organizers cannot cover the speakers’ travel and hotel costs. There is no registration fee for participation or attendance.

Prospective speakers are asked to submit by 30 April 2014 a title and a 400-word abstract to Stavroula Constantinou (konstans@ucy.ac.cy) and Maria Gerolemou (mariagerolemou@live.de).

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Postgraduate Colloquium of CBOMG– Birmingham university

the 15th Postgraduate Colloquium of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman & Modern Greek Studies, will take place on May 24th 2014.

This event is an excellent opportunity for research students in Late Antique, Byzantine or Modern Greek Studies to present their current research to an international academic audience at Birmingham. Our keynote speaker will be Dr Maria Georgopoulou, Director of the Gennadius Library (American School of Classical Studies at Athens).

Information en PDF

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Appel à contribution — Embodied Identities RCAC

Embodied Identities: Figural and Symbolic Representation of the Self in Anatolia
June 7 and 8, 2014

Istanbul, Turkey

This two-day workshop will be hosted at the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, Koç University, in Taksim. The organizers invite the submission of abstracts presenting excavation data relating to identity, territoriality and artistic expression of Anatolian personalities or groups, as well as investigations into the creation and manipulation of identity through material culture. The focus of the first day will be on theoretical and methodological approaches to identity in prehistoric Anatolia, while the second day will be open to papers concerning identity and self at any time period in Anatolian studies.

The main objective of the workshop is to investigate the embodiment of identity markers in literal and representative media; such as mortuary practices, personalization of tools, location of petroglyphs, and changing contexts of settlement planning. The archaeological focus of this workshop will enhance our perspectives on the relations between the self-determination of ancient Anatolians and their material context in Anatolia.

Abstracts of 300 words or fewer should be sent to ehughes@ku.edu.tr no later than midnight on February 10, 2014.

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Appel à contribution — Université de Tampere Finlande

Passages from Antiquity to the Middle Ages VI:

ON THE ROAD
TRAVELS, PILGRIMAGES AND SOCIAL INTERACTION

University of Tampere, Finland
6. – 8. August, 2015

CALL FOR PAPERS (deadline September 15th 2014)

The sixth international Passages from Antiquity to the Middle Ages
conference will focus on social approaches to travelling, mobility,
pilgrimages, and cultural exchange. Interaction between society and
space has been a key interest of scholars after the ‘Spatial Turn’.
Nevertheless, larger comparisons between eras and cultures are mainly
missing.

The archetypal journey of Odysseys served as a metaphor and model for
later narrations of travelling. In both Ancient and medieval worlds,
religious reasons were significant motivations for travelling; these
travels confront the traditional idea of these periods as eras of
immobility. However, the challenges of setting out for a journey, as
well as the dangers of the road, were not dependent on the incentive
but rather on distance and other geographical settings, social status
of the traveller, and political climate.

The conference aims at concentrating on social and cultural
interaction before, during and after travelling. What kinds of
motivations were there for ancient and medieval people to get on the
road and what kind of negotiations and networks were inherent in
travelling? We welcome papers, which have a sensitive approach to
social differences: gender, age, health, and status. Actors,
experiences and various levels of negotiations are of main interest,
and our focus lies on society and the history of everyday life, on the
differences and similarities between elite and popular culture, and on
the expectations linked to gender and life cycle stage, visible in the
practices and policies of travelling. We encourage proposals that
integrate the theme of travelling into wider larger social and
cultural contexts.

We aim at a broad coverage not only chronologically but also
geographically and disciplinarily (all branches of Classical,
Byzantine and Medieval Studies). Most preferable are contributions
that have themselves a comparative and/or interdisciplinary viewpoint
or focusing on a longue durée perspective.

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If interested, please submit an abstract of 300 words (setting out
thesis and conclusions) for a twenty-minute paper together with your
contact details (with academic affiliation, address and e-mail) by
e-mail attachment to the conference secretary, passages@uta.fi. The
deadline for abstracts is September 15th 2014, and the notification of
paper acceptance will be made in November 2014.

Conference papers may also be presented in French, German or Italian,
however, supplied with an English summary (as a hand-out) or
translation if the language of presentation is not English. The
sessions are formed on the basis of thematic coherence of the papers
and comparisons between Antiquity and the Middle Ages, thus session
proposals focusing on one period only will not be accepted.

The registration fee is 100 EUR (doctoral students: 50 EUR). For further
information, please visit http://www.uta.fi/trivium/passages/ or
contact the organizers by sending an e-mail to passages@uta.fi. The
registration opens in November 2014 at
http://www.uta.fi/trivium/passages.

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Appel à contribution — Sofia university

Deadline extended to January 6, 2014

The Basilica of St Sophia in the Transition from Paganism to Christianity

International Conference, March 11-13, 2014, Sofia, Bulgaria

The Sofia History Museum is organizing an international conference celebrating the 1700th anniversary of the first Christian church built at the site where the current basilica of St Sophia is situated. The event takes place in support of the candidacy of Sofia for European Capital of Culture in 2019. For more details please see attachment.

The conference will concentrate not only on the Basilica of St Sophia in Sofia but on the wider field of

– Early Christian and sepulchral architecture;

– Early Christian communities;

– History of Early Christianity;

– Conservation, restoration, protection and management of cultural heritage.

We welcome proposals for papers in all subjects related to Early Christian studies broadly conceived. Abstract of no more than 350 words should be sent by January 6, 2014 to Erina Krysteva (erina.krysteva@sofiahistorymuseum.bg).