In questa pagina sono riportate calls for papers o le calls for conference proposte all’attenzione della Consulta Universitaria del Greco.
• Call dell’Università di Messina Callimachus in Progress. Per ogni informazione si rimanda al documento Callimachus in Progress
• Call for papers dell’Università di Bergamo
‛Minor’ Female Poets of the Archaic and Classical Age
Workshop of the project PRIN WInGS – Women Intellectuals in Greek Society
29th-30th January 2025
University of Bergamo (Italy)
Department of Lettere, Filosofia, Comunicazione
Scientific committee: Andrea Capra, Lucia Floridi, Cecilia Nobili
Organization: Cecilia Nobili, Tullia Spinedi
Keynote speakers: Giovan Battista D’Alessio, Ettore Cingano
Lyric poetry, as an expressive code and performative mode, seems to characterize the female voice from the earliest literary evidence. In Homer, women are often depicted performing songs that can be interpreted as various forms of lyrical performances. Furthermore, their language often exhibits forms later found in lyric compositions, such as marriage songs and funeral odes.
It has long been demonstrated that female members of society engaged as performers of cultic songs held considerable importance to the community. Famous poets like Alkman, Pindar, and Bacchylides were hired as composers and chorodidaskaloi.
Additionally, ancient sources preserve records of the existence and work of some female poets, active between the 7th and 4th centuries BCE. The surviving poetry of Sappho is a particularly privileged source for reconstructing women’s poetic activity on Lesbos and the subsequent circulation and reception of these poems.
Other female poets were active as early as the Archaic and Classical periods and are remembered in various ways: ποιητρία, λυρική, μελοποιός…
The Life of Pindar, preserved by P.Oxy. 2438, mentions ‘Corinna and the others’, and this workshop is dedicated to them. It aims to investigate the work of female authors such as Corinna, Praxilla, and Telesilla, whose production was significant enough to be identified, recognized, and handed down to future generations.
Research questions include, but are not limited to, the following:
1. Female poets’ compositions are described in many ways (μέλη, νόμοι…). Is it possible to pin down the literary genres favoured by women authors of lyric poetry? Consequently, is it possible to reconstruct performance occasions and audiences within the broader socio-historical context in which they operated?
2. The idea of suitability is typical of lyric discourse and inevitably seems to involve the production of female poets as well. How do they address this topic? Is it possible to trace ‘gender markers’?
3. How did female poetic production fit within the wider poetic tradition? What relationship does it have with literary genres usually practised by male poets, such as epic or epinician odes? And with folk tradition?
4. The existence of a ‘segregated’ tradition, i.e., exclusively produced by and for women, is a matter of debate. What reflections can be drawn from texts and testimonies?
5. Who decided to preserve the production of some women authors, and why? Is it possible to investigate the public and private institutions or mechanisms that contributed to transcribing and handing down the compositions of women poets, considering the economic dynamics related to commissions and recognition of women’s professionalism?
6. Women poets are often credited with legendary biographies: are there typical patterns exclusive to female authors? What clues do they offer about their role in society and the reception of their work? Are there recurring terms used to refer to their intellectual profile?
Proposals in Italian and in English are invited for contributions of about 20 minutes. Please send an abstract of up to 300 words to tullia.spinedi@unibg.it by 10th september 2024.
The outcome of the selection procedure will be announced by 30th September 2024.
For any inquiries, please contact Tullia Spinedi (tullia.spinedi@unibg.it) or Cecilia Nobili (cecilia.nobili@unibg.it)
Selected bibliography
Bastianelli L. 2007, Telesilla e la saga dei Niobidi: testimonianze poetiche e tradizioni locali, in L’epos minore, le tradizioni locali e la poesia arcaica, ed. P. A. Bernardini, Pisa – Roma, 25-35.
Bowman L. 2004, The “Women’s Tradition” in Greek Poetry, «Phoenix» 58.1/2, 1-27.
Cazzato V. 2016, «Glancing seductively through windows»: the Look of Praxilla fr. 8 (PMG 754), in The Look of Lyric: Greek Song and the Visual, ed. V. Cazzato, A. Lardinois, A.E. Peponi, Leiden, 185-203.
Collins D. 2006, Corinna and Mythological Innovation, «CQ» 56, 19-32.
De Martino F. 2006, Poetesse greche, Bari.
Dillon M., Eidinow E., Maurizio L. (eds.) 2017, Women’s Ritual Competence in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, London – New York.
Ferrari F. 2007, Una mitra per Kleis. Saffo e il suo pubblico, Pisa.
Greene E. (ed.) 2005, Women poets in ancient Greece and Rome, Norman (Okla.).
Hallett J., Natoli B., Pitts A. 2022, Ancient Women Writers of Greece and Rome, London – New York.
Lardinois A., McClure L. (eds.) 2001, Making Silence Speak: Women’s Voices in Greek Literature and Society, Princeton.
Nobili C. 2023, L’Inno ad Adone di Prassilla di Sicione (PMG 747), «Maia» 75.2-3, 199-211.
Palumbo Stracca B. M. 1993, Corinna e il suo pubblico, in Tradizione e innovazione nella cultura greca da Omero all’età ellenistica: scritti in onore di Bruno Gentili, ed. R. Pretagostini, Roma, 403-412.
Prioux E. 2020, Les portraits de poétesses, du IVe siècle av. J.-C. à l’époque impériale, in Féminités hellénistiques: voix, genre, représentations, ed. C. Cusset, P. Belenfant, C.-E. Nardone, Leuven, 223-267.
• Si segnala la call for papers dell’Università di Bologna Ἐν Μούσῃσι ἔξοχος. Greek Intellectual Women in Hellenistic and Imperial Age con scadenza il 30 settembre 2024. Tutte le informazioni necessarie si trovano a questo link
• Dal settembre 2023 si può rispondere alla call di «Vichiana» le cui informazioni sono ricavabili da questa comunicazione