From Homer to Hatzi-Yavrouda – Aspects of Oral Narration in the Greek Tradition, Danish Institute at Athens, September 29–30, 2018

The aim of this conference is to analyze and discuss various aspects of orally produced and diffused stories from the Greek tradition, from Antiquity up to the storytelling communities in the 20th century.

In European culture, literature has been orally created and diffused as a parallel to written literature, but until rather recently the two traditions have mostly been studied separately. However, there is a closer interrelationship between the two, and it is not just the orally diffused folk literature that is inspired by the written high-culture literature. It is also vice versa. Therefore, the conference will start with the question: What is orality?

We wish to study orality from different genres and periods within the Greek tradition and from different academic fields, as e.g. classical philology, byzantine studies, folklore, and comparative literature. Proposals in all these fields are welcome as are proposals addressing the interrelationship between oral and written literature, or the influence from and to other cultures. For the modern period special focus will be given to the folktale.

The Greek tradition is taken as a point of departure for a diachronic analysis of orality, from Homer to one of the most intriguing narrators of Greek folktales, Hatzi-Yavrouda of Kos. But it is our belief that the results of the analysis of the Greek case could easily be applied to other European traditions.

It will be a two-day conference with four key-note papers: by Professor Emeritus from the Department of Folklore at the University of Athens, Michalis Meraklis, Professor Emerita from the Department of Classics at the University of Southern Denmark, Minna Skafte Jensen, Assistant Professor Emerita and Senior Research Fellow at the Austrian Academy of Science, Carolina Cupane, and Professor Emerita from the Department of Modern Greek at Harvard University, Margaret Alexiou, in a joint paper with artist Katerina Samara.

To add another dimension to the academic conference, we hope to be able to include two live performances in the programme: by the British storytellers Hugh Lupton and Daniel Mordon, who will do a re-telling of Homer, and by Greek narrator Sasa Voulgari, who will tell Modern Greek folktales.

The conference is a collaboration between The Kapodistrian University of Athens and The Danish Institute at Athens.