Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies

Hellenic Studies / Group for the Study of Late Antiquity Lecture
John Haldon (University of Birmingham)
58 Prospect Avenue, Room 107

The traditionally-accepted views of the role of the emperor Leo III (717-741) in introducing an iconoclast religious policy into Byzantium in the early eighth century is founded on sources which were largely written after the period they purport to describe, and by those who opposed, usually very vehemently, the policies of that emperor. 19th- and 20th-century scholarship as well as popular opinion has generally accepted these views in large measure, so that modern historians' accounts of the period are often a more-or-less faithful reflection of ninth-century Byzantine iconophile views. A careful scrutiny of the few sources contemporary with Leo's reign, and with that of his successor Constantine V, suggests that this picture is in need of very considerable revision. In this paper, some alternative interpretations will be offered, with significant implications for our understanding of the eighth century in Byzantium, the role of the papacy, and the west.

JOHN HALDON is Professor of Byzantine History in the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, and Head of the School of Historical Studies, at the University of Birmingham. He studied at Birmingham, Athens, Oxford and Munich, and has written numerous books and articles on many aspects of late Roman and Byzantine social and institutional history. He is also interested in the comparative history of pre-modern states. He is editor of the journal Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies. His most recent books include Warfare, state and society in Byzantium 565-1204 (1999), Byzantium: a history (2000), The Byzantine wars (2001) and (with Leslie Brubaker) Byzantium in the iconoclast era (ca. 680-850): the sources (2001). With Leslie Brubaker he is currently completing a major re-assessment of the iconoclast period, Byzantium in the iconoclast era (ca. 680-850): a historical survey (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press), and is Director of a major new project funded by the European Science Foundation on medieval logistics. [Last Updated 2003]

Elli Papakonstantinou (Artistic Director, ODC Ensemble)
Dimitris Kamarotos (Center for Contemporary Music Research, Athens)
www.odcensemble.com
58 Prospect Avenue, Room 107

The presentation will take place in an audio-visual installation using sounds and images from past performances of "ODC...after Homer." In this live presentation-in-progress, we shall analyze the main aim of our work: how to approach ancient texts in the light of contemporary performance. The workshop aims to introduce a series of issues related to the function of the ancient storyteller and to the creation of its contemporary equivalent. To present our research work we shall show extracts of documented past performances and we will perform short samples.

Homer's Odyssey and "ODC...after Homer:" "ODC...after Homer" unites two complementary elements: music and storytelling. In an attempt to understand and recreate the mechanism of rhythmical storytelling, such as the ones that existed in Homer's time, the Odyssey is approached primarily via its musicality and is treated as a music score. The performers blend vocally notes and phrases from the original ancient Greek text with fragments from the English, Modern Greek and Spanish translations of the Odyssey. Thus, the performance aims to construct and celebrate a palimpsest of language, where the text is 'painted,' 'chanted,' and 'narrated.' Video and light installations merge with sounds and music in search of a total theatrical language. Grabbing natural sounds from the space, with microphones and real-time sound processors, ODC performers fuse the human voice with electronic voice processors. The conventional merges with the unexpected: Human voice and natural sounds blend with pre-recorded music and processed sounds to form an original musical storytelling. "ODC...after Homer" has been performed at the Opera of Cairo (2-3 May 2002), the Edinburgh Festival (31 July-24 August 2002) and the Library of Alexandria (22-23 October 2002) and has been invited to perform in Italy, France, Jordan, and other locations.

ELLI PAPAKONSTANTINOU is the Artistic Director of ODC Ensemble. After studying at the Greek National School of Arts, she moved to the U.K. in order to continue her studies on playwriting and directing (earning an M.A. and M.Phil. at the University of London). She has collaborated with playwrights at The Royal Court Theatre and the BAC in London and has assisted a number of directors including Mathias Langhoff and Vassilis Papavasiliou. She has worked at the National Theatre of Greece, The National Theatre of Northern Greece for productions at The Epidavros Festival and the Roman Colosseum. Directing credits include: ODC...After Homer (Cairo Opera House, Edinburgh Festival, Library of Alexandria, etc.); Nine Lives Ten Tales by L. Warren (BAC, London and Edinburgh Festival), Decameron of Women by J. Vosnezeskaya (IVI, Athens), Ajax by Sophocles (West End, London), The Suppliants after Aeschylus by T. Hammerschlag (Edinburgh Festival). Elli has been credited with a Fulbright Artist's Award and nominated for Best Greek Performance Award 2001.  [Last Updated 2003]

DIMITRIS KAMAROTOS studied music theory, composition and electronic music at the University of Paris and the Ecole Normale Superieure. Since 1986, he has worked as research manager at the Center for Contemporary Music Research in Athens and is a founding member of the Institute for Psychoacoustics and Music, Thessaloniki. He has worked with Brad Garton, Perry Cook and Thanassis Rikakis in the foundation of the Computer Music Studio at the University of Thessaloniki. He has collaborated with the National Theatre of Greece and the State Theatre of Northern Greece. He has composed music for ancient drama productions at the theatre of Epidavros and for the performance of Oedipus Rex at the inauguration of The Colosseum in Rome as a performing space in 2000.  [Last Updated 2003]

Cosponsored by: Department of Music; Department of Computer Science; Cotsen Children's Library, Firestone Library

• Courses and independent work:
  Classical tradition; Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies
• Summer opportunities in Greece:
  Study, research, excavations and Internships in Greece

58 Prospect Avenue, Room 101
Refreshments will be served

Robert Doran (Amhert College)
211 Dickinson Hall

Emmanuel S. Moutafov (Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
58 Prospect Avenue, Room 107

This talk will focus on the significance of the Orthodox painters' manuals, called "hermeneia zographikes," in the development of post-Byzantine iconography and painting technology and techniques in the Balkans during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Using a number of unpublished painters' manuals (Greek and Slavonic) as primary sources for the study of Christian and Ottoman culture in the Balkan peninsula, it is possible to examine perceptions of Europe in the Balkans, in particular the principal routes for the transmission of ideas of the European Enlightenment, as well as the role of artists as mediators in the processes of "Europeanization."

EMMANUEL S. MOUTAFOV, a graduate of the University of Athens, Department of History and Archaeology, is a research scholar in Post-Byzantine and Slavonic palaeography, art, and Balkan cultural history at the Post-Byzantine Art Department of the Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. He manages the Greek-Bulgarian project on "Greek Painters in Bulgaria after 1453," teaches modern Greek and post-Byzantine Art, and also works as an illustrator and translator.  [Last Updated 2003]

Please enjoy some pictures from the party.

• Set 1
• Set 2
  
   

Evelyne Patlagean (Universiti de Paris-X)
58 Prospect, Room 107

Sponsored by the Group for the Study of Late Antiquity and the Program in Hellenic Studies

George Economou (University of Oklahoma)
58 Prospect Avenue, Room 107

GEORGE ECONOMOU is the author of seven books of poetry, the latest of which is Century Dead Center (Left Hand Books, 1997), and numerous translations from ancient and modern Greek and medieval European languages. A critic and scholar of medieval literature, he has written and edited several books and many articles and reviews, including The Goddess Natura in Medieval Literature (Harvard University Press, 1972; reprinted with a new introduction and bibliography, University of Notre Dame Press, 2002). He was a founding editor of The Chelsea Review and co-founder of Trobar and Trobar Books. He has been awarded fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation and other foundations, and has been named twice as an NEA Fellow in Poetry. He recently retired as Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma, after 41 years of teaching. [Last Updated 2003]

Rupinder Singh (School of Architecture)
Respondent: M. Christine Boyer (School of Architecture)
58 Prospect Avenue, Room 107

An aesthetic education was the goal of nineteenth century travel to Greece. The pure classical air was supposed to cleanse the senses, especially the eyes. Thereafter, the historical landscape and the monuments, especially the Athenian Acropolis, were free to provide the desired aesthetic instructions. The published travel narratives that followed were a proof of having achieved this aesthetic education. The narratives employ a first person voice to directly translate actual lived experiences (Erlebnisse). Thus, it is surprising that they fail to translate the traveler's experience at its most crucial point, at the Acropolis. Facing the Parthenon, the narrative slips away from the author, from the first person to a third person account.

RUPINDER SINGH is a doctoral candidate in the School of Architecture at Princeton University. His dissertation, Complex Ideals of Pure Form, focuses on turn of the century German theorists who employed theories of cognition to construct art and architectural theories. These theorists focused specifically on the Athenian Acropolis, especially when dealing with the issues of judgment of art. Singh holds a previous graduate degree from MIT and a professional degree in architecture, and has practiced architecture for some years. [Last Updated 2003]