'Greek Literary Epigram: From the Hellenistic to the Byzantine Era

'Greek Literary Epigram: From the Hellenistic to the Byzantine Era'

An international conference to be held at University College London, 11 - 13
September 2013.

Recent scholarship has witnessed an escalating interest in the study of
Greek literary epigram, which was given further momentum by the discovery
and publication of the New Milan Papyrus, attributed to Posidippus of Pella.
Considerable progress has been made in our appreciation of the development
and features of the genre and its exponents in the Hellenistic period.
However, intense scholarly focus on Hellenistic epigram has led to an
under-appreciation of the later epigrammatic material, from the Roman to the
Byzantine period. The aim of this international conference is to investigate
the changes that literary epigram underwent over the centuries, its
interrelationship with other Greek literary genres and with the visual arts,
as well as the factors which influenced its development across time. In this
way the conference aims to advance our understanding of the epigram by
shifting focus away from an author-, garland,- and time-based study of
epigrams and exploring Greek literary epigrams - from the Hellenistic to
those included in the Cycle of Agathias - in a wider perspective, leading to
the understanding of the larger dynamics that shaped the epigram as a
literary type, and the factors that influenced its development and
guaranteed its survival throughout antiquity.

The list of confirmed speakers includes:
Prof. Silvia Barbantani (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore)
Prof. Peter Bing (Emory)
Prof. Joseph Day (Wabash College)
Prof. Marco Fantuzzi (Columbia)
Dr. Lucia Floridi (Milan)
Dr. Valentina Garulli (Bologna)
Prof. Kathryn Gutzwiller (Cincinnati)
Prof. Annette Harder (Groningen)
Dr. Regina Hoeschele (Toronto)
Prof. Richard Hunter (Cambridge)
Prof. Irmgard Maennlein-Robert (Tübingen)
Dr. Doris Meyer (Strasbourg)
Dr. Andrej Petrovic (Durham)

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Please submit your title and abstract (up to one page A4), along with your
personal data (name, affiliation, email) until the 30th of March 2013 via
email to the following address: m.kanellou@ucl.ac.uk.

Possible subjects for papers include, but are not limited to:
-Contextualisation of literary epigrams of different periods within their
religious, political, and geographical milieu
-Cross-fertilisation between different epigrammatic subgenres
-Poetic rivalry and imitation
-Intertextuality
-Poetic voice in different epigrammatists and subgenres
-Development of poetic topoi within the genre
-Mythic and other narrative modes
-Interrelation between epigrams and inscriptions
-Epigrams and patronage
-Epigrams and iconography
-Epigrams, anthologies, and performative context

The organising committee,

Maria Kanellou
Ivana Petrovic
Chris Carey