Education and Literature in a Medieval Eurasian Context
2nd Gutenberg Symposium, Vienna, 4–6 June 2025
Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz & Central European University
Organizers: Baukje van den Berg (CEU) and Panagiotis Agapitos (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)
The conference is supported by the Center for Eastern Mediterranean and The Academic Cooperation and Research Support Office (ACRO) at CEU, and Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz.
The symposium "Education and Literature in a Medieval Eurasian Context", organized as a collaboration between CEU and the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, will explore the role of school training and education in the production and consumption of literature in Byzantium within a broader medieval Eurasian context. How did the training received in schools impact modes of writing and reading literature? How did school curricula develop over time and how did these developments relate to broader changes in medieval culture and literature? And what is the role of manuscripts in this context? These are only some of the questions that the symposium seeks to address.
Conference Program:
Wednesday, 4 June 2025 (QS D-001)
17:30 Keynote lecture:
Vasileios Marinis (Yale University), “Teaching the Liturgy in Palaiologan Byzantium”
Wine reception
Thursday, 5 June 2025 (QS B-505)
Chair: Susana Torres Prieto (IE University)
9:00 Florin Leonte (Palacký University Olomouc), “Facing a Crisis through Teaching: The Impact of Education on Late Byzantine Responses to Ottoman Expansion”
10:00 Nuha Alshaar (American University of Sharjah/ The Institute of Ismaili Studies), “The Ethical Theory of Education of Body and Soul: How to Train Young Men from adab/philosophical Perspective in 9th and 10th Centuries Baghdad”
11:00 Coffee break
Chair: Zeynep Aydogan (Institute for Mediterranean Studies (IMS–FORTH), Rethymno)
11:30 Petros Bouras-Vallianatos (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), “Medical Education in Later Byzantium (11th–15th c.): Texts and Contexts”
12:30 Chrysi Kotsifou (University of Göttingen), “A Letter, a Book, and a Votive Cross: The Case of the Nunnery of the White Monastery Federation, Its Educational Role, and Its Patronage and Production of Manuscripts”
13:30 Lunch break
Chair: Katja Weidner (University of Vienna)
15:00 Aglae Pizzone (University of Southern Denmark), “Cognitive Conflict and How to Create It: Lessons from the Byzantine Classroom”
16:00 Baukje van den Berg (Central European University), “Grammar as Literary Theory in Byzantium: The Commentaries to Dionysios Thrax”
19:00 Participant dinner at Meixners Gastwirtschaft (Buchengasse 64, 1100)
Friday, 6 June 2025 (QS B-505)
Chair: Aglae Pizzone (University of Southern Denmark)
9:00 Maria Tomadaki (University of Ioannina), “The Role of Euripides in Byzantine Education and His Impact on Byzantine Poetry (7th–12th Centuries)”
10:00 Maria Giovanna Sandri (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa) & Panagiotis Agapitos (Johannes-Gutenberg University of Mainz), “Education and Literature in the Eighth Century: A Rhetorical and Grammatical Comparison of the ‘Definitions of Faith’ of the Iconoclast Council of Hieria (AD 754) and of the Iconophile Council of Nicaea (AD 787)”
11:00 Coffee break
Chair: Nuha Alshaar (American University of Sharjah/ The Institute of Ismaili Studies)
11:30 Nasrin Askari (University of Toronto), “Education and Literary Style in Medieval Persian Prose: A Comparison of the Mūnis-nāma and Marzbān-nāma”
12:30 Zeynep Aydogan (Institute for Mediterranean Studies (IMS–FORTH)), “The Anatolian Turkish Warrior Epics: Entertainment, Story-telling and History-writing”
13:30 Lunch break
Chair: Petros Bouras-Vallianatos (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)
14:30 Daria Resh (Swedish Institute at Athens / University of Southern Denmark), “From Hermogenian Commentators to Popular Hagiography: Responses to the Metaphrastic Movement in 9th- to 11th-century Byzantium”
15:30 Osman Yüksel Özdemir (Central European University), “Late Antique Rhetoric and Strategies of Storytelling in the Liturgical Poetry of Romanos the Melodist and Jacob of Serugh”
16:30 Michele Trizio (University of Bari Aldo Moro), “Reading, Teaching, Writing: The Byzantine Philosophical Commentary Tradition”
17:30 Farewell address
