The Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams project (DBBE) will organise a conference on “Paratexts in Premodern Writing Cultures”, which will take place in Ghent on 24-26 June 2024.
With this conference we aim to bring together scholars engaged in the exploration of premodern paratexts transmitted in a variety of languages (such as Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Coptic, Hebrew, Latin, Slavonic, Syriac). It is our aim to discuss the nature of paratextuality in medieval manuscripts, to reveal similarities and peculiarities of paratexts across language borders, and to understand the broader cultural and historical ramifications of paratexts. We are interested both in the textual evidence of medieval paratexts and in their material transmission.
For all further information, please visit the conference website: https://www.dbbe2024.ugent.be/.
For any additional questions you may have, please contact the organisers at dbbe@ugent.be.
! UPDATE ! Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the conference has been cancelled.
The Psalms, in their Greek Septuagint translation, were a fundamental corpus of biblical poetry, and as such were continuously referred to in Christian literature. They played a key role in the daily life and in the development of religious sensitivity of late antique and Byzantine people. The production of Psalm-related literature, notably exegetic, was impressively widespread. The Psalms, however, influenced other genres of religious literature as well, and their poetical nature remained an important feature that later authors were well aware of.
This colloquium is organised within the framework of the projects David, our Orpheus. Reception, Rewritings and Adaptations of the Psalms in Byzantine Poetry (funded by the FWO – Flemish Research Foundation) and The Legacy of the Psalms in Byzantine Poetry: Book Epigrams and Metrical Paraphrases (funded by the FWO – Flemish Research Foundation and the FWF – Austrian Science Fund), which are being carried out at Ghent University, KU Leuven and the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
More information: https://www.psalms2020.ugent.be/.
! UPDATE ! Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Growing Corpora conference in June has been cancelled.
Since 2010, the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams team have been growing an online corpus of metrical paratexts, several of which were previously unpublished or unknown altogether, and made them freely available to the scholarly community.
A new version of our database (https://www.dbbe.ugent.be) was launched in June 2019. Exactly one year later, we are organising a two-day conference. Together with anyone interested in this particular genre of Byzantine poetry, we want to celebrate and reflect on what we have achieved so far and look ahead at what is – hopefully! – yet to come. Moreover, we want to stimulate communication and collaboration with other projects that are growing online corpora of texts.
For any further information, please visit our conference website (https://www.dbbe2020.ugent.be).