CFP Novel Saints. Novel, Hagiography and Romance from the 4th to the 12th Century (Gante, noviembre de 2018)

Os dejamos aquí toda la información de la presentación de comunicaciones para este congreso que tendrá lugar en Gante (Bélgica) el 22-24 de noviembre de este año. El plazo está abierto hasta el 15 de abril. Al final tenéis todos los datos de contacto. Tenéis también enlazado el pdf que han enviado con el call for papers completo.

Novel Saints. Novel, Hagiography and Romance from the 4th to the 12th Century

International Conference in Ghent, Het Pand, Thursday 22nd-Saturday 24th November 2018

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

Prof. Kate Cooper, Royal Holloway, University of London
Prof. Stratis Papaioannou, Brown University

The early history of the novel has not been written yet. The oldest representatives of this genre (also called ‘ancient romances’ in scholarship) were written in Latin and Greek in the first few centuries of the Common Era. Often, scholars have observed an interim period between the fourth and twelfth centuries from which no novels are said to have been preserved, and identify a so-called ‘re-emergence’ of the genre in Byzantium.Building on recent research that studies hagiography as literature, this conference of the ERC project Novel Saints (Ghent University) aims to challenge this view by studying hagiography as a continuation of novelistic literature during the so-called ‘dark age’ of the novel. A number of texts from this period have already received attention for their novelistic qualities, such as Ps-Nilus’ Narrationes, Ammonius’ Report on the Slaughter of the Monks of Sinai and Rhaithou, the Historia Monachorum, Palladius’ Historia Lausiaca, The Martyrdom of Galaction & Episteme, Jerome’s Lives of Malchus, Paul and Hilarion, and the Syriac Life of Abraham and his Niece Mary. Moreover, both ancient fiction and some of these (and other) hagiographical narratives are known to have impacted medieval romance (e.g. Metiochus and Parthenope as a source for the Persian love romance Vāmiq & ‘Adhrā and the Life of Saint Eustace/Placidas for chivalric romance in the West).

The conference aims to examine the persistence of ancient novelistic material in hagiography and instances of continuity of novelistic and/or hagiographical strands in medieval romances in the West, Byzantium and Persia.

Please find attached the full call for papers.

Please send your abstracts to Flavia Ruani (flavia.ruani(a)ugent.be) by 15 April 2018. Abstracts (350 words max, in English or French) should include name, title of proposed paper, affiliation, and position.

Notification about participation will be emailed by 15 June 2018. For further queries, please contact flavia.ruani(a)ugent.be or tine.scheijnen(a)ugent.be.