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2009 Graduate Research Colloquium, Abstracts

ESSION

1: 10.00 – 11.00

Discovering

τα

βυζαντινά

παλικάρια

Stratos Myrogiannis (Cambridge), ‘Mind the Gap: the invention of Byzantiumin the Greek Enlightenment’In this paper I set out to trace the process of the theoretical assimilation of theidea of ‘Byzantium’ as a historical era into the Greek historical consciousnessduring the Greek Enlightenment. So far, the mainstream view on this subjectis that ‘Byzantium’ became a distinctive part of Greek history thanks to theremarkable work of two of the most prominent scholars of Greek Romantichistoriography, Spyridon Zampelios and Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos. Inthis paper I revise this widely accepted view by reviewing key writersthrough their specific works that have historiografical qualities. Within thetheoretical framework of the history of concepts and through a contextualanalysis I argue that during the eighteenth century Greek-speakingintellectuals, from Meletios to Koraes, styled the history of the Greeks as asecularised and uninterrupted sequence of eras. The main problem thesescholars faced was integrating in their narrative the Greek Middle Ages; aperiod European historians and antiquarians had ignored. In contrast, thisperiod was viewed by Greek scholars as a historical gap. In their attempt to bridge this gap, the answer they gradually came up with was the invention of what Koraes first named – earlier than it is traditionally considered –‘Byzantine history’.Mary Greensted (Birmingham), ‘British Arts and Crafts Movement architectsand Byzantine architecture in Greece’Two young British architects, Robert Weir Schultz, and Sidney H Barnsley,were responsible for nurturing and developing the interest in Byzantinearchitecture in Arts and Crafts Movement circles. They spent nearly threeyears in Greece recording Byzantine churches on the mainland. After their

return to Britain in 1890 they began designing buildings and working in woodand metal inspired by their Byzantine studies.This paper will look at the impact of their early studies on their later careersas architects and designers. What was the attraction of Byzantine work forArts and Crafts architects? How did Byzantine architecture fit in with Artsand Crafts principles about sound construction, honest design, craftsmanshipand the economical use of materials? In Barnsley’s church at LowerKingswood, Surrey and in Schultz’s St Andrew’s Chapel in WestminsterCathedral they produced two of the finest Arts and Crafts monuments thatare both modern and Byzantine in character.S

ESSION

2: 11.30 – 13.00

Across the borders

Annika Demosthenous (Oxford), ‘Becoming the Bard: Robert Burns, VassilisMichaelides and the conception of the National Poet’

Born almost a century apart, and in places distant from each other bothgeographically and culturally, Vassilis Michaelides and Robert Burns have onenotable thing in common: each is considered the National Poet of his country,the Bard, charged with voicing the very essence of the nation’s identity.Interestingly, there is a large section of common ground in their work, bothin terms of their choice of subject matter, and in the issues they reconcilethrough their poetry. In other words, they share a complex relationship withtradition, class and national identity, as well as the need for equally complexnegotiations between dialect and official language. Furthermore, both poetsare deeply complicit in the manufacture of a credible, new national image,which to a certain extent endures in both places to this day, eliciting poeticresponses both positive and negative. Through a comparison of the twopoets’ oeuvres combined with an investigation of their reception throughanalysis of articles and biographies, this paper proposes to show that it isfrom this common ground that the characteristics necessary for theestablishment of a National Poet emerge.

Foteini Lika (Cambridge), ‘The Figures in the Text: Metaphor asMetacommentary in Swift and Roidis’Roidis, in the second of the Agriniot letters he wrote, charts the satiricalgenealogy of Pope Joan listing among her literary forefathers prominentancient Greek and Latin satirical writers; as well as Italian, French, Englishand Spanish satirists from the Middle Ages onwards. However, the satiristwhom he seems to emulate in order to keep his readers alert, as he himself admits in the

Τοις

Εντευξομένοις

’ part of Pope Joan, is Jonathan Swift. Inparticular, Roidis’ anti-soporific remedy was inspired by Swift’s description of the flappers in the floating island of Laputa in Gulliver’s Travels.Nevertheless, even though Roidis admittedly draws his inspiration fromSwift’s work and justifies his rhetorical poetics from Swift’s example, Swift’srhetoric is in absolute contrast to what Roidis presents his readers with inPope Joan. Instead, it is their use of metaphor as a metatextual commentaryon satirical method that is the true affinity between the two.Victoria Reuter (Oxford), ‘A ‘Penelopean Poetics’: Feminist Re-Vision of Mythin the Poetry of Francisca Aguirre and Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke’Although myths have perpetuated some of the most restrictive notions of femininity in literature, women writers continue to engage with them and thearchetypes they produce. According to DuPlessis, myth is: “a story that,regardless of its loose ends, states cultural agreement and coherence”

.Myths are not just remnants of ancient legends; they exist because we have allagreed that they should exist. Therein lies the crux of what feminism hasattempted to unravel: how and why have we come to agree on suchideologies that subjugate and silence women? Moreover, why have womencontinued to use characters such as Penelope, the quintessential ‘dutiful wife’,as the vehicle through which to express their own poetic voice? This paperwill examine how Francisca Aguirre (b.1930) and Katerina-Anghelaki Rooke

DuPlessis, R. B. (1985). Writing Beyond the Ending : Narrative Strategies of Twentieth-CenturyWomen Writers. Bloomington, Ind, Indiana University Press.