Approaches to Greek Compilation Literature from Byzantium (historiographic, spiritual, monastic, gnomologic), KU Leuven, May 29, 2018
In the Greek Middle Ages, the preservation of ancient knowledge and culture was a major concern. This attention was developed in a vast body of literary compilations, which cover a wide range of genres and forms (historiography, exegesis, poetry etc.). Editorial approaches to these compilations reflect the scholarly attitude towards Byzantine literature and culture in general: while up to the twentieth century editors mainly exploited them only to retrieve texts from antiquity or late antiquity, contemporary scholarship more often studies them in their own right as products of a particular society and holds them worthy of being edited in full. This more recent approach is not undisputed from a conceptual point of view. In addition, it runs into several problems, some of which are caused by the complex textual tradition of the compilations and their habit of being related among each other.
This round table, which is organized by LECTIO (Leuven Centre for the Study of the Transmission of Text and Ideas in Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance) and its Laboratory for Text Editing, brings together established and young scholars who have hands-on experience in editing Byzantine compilations of various kinds. They will offer reports of their most recent fieldwork and lead the way to a round table discussion, which will allow participants to take part in formulating answers to methodological challenges and conceptual questions.
Confirmed speakers: Dorotei Getov (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), José Maksimczuk (KU Leuven), Panagiotis Manafis (UGent), Denis Searby (Stockholm University), Emanuel Zingg (KU Leuven)
Participation is free, but registration is required before 18 May 2018.