Character Construction in Byzantium

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F68378017%3A_____%2F24%3A00599881" target="_blank" >RIV/68378017:_____/24:00599881 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Character Construction in Byzantium

Original language description

The presentation of characters emerges as a multifaceted complex of literary devices, reflections of gender, power dynamics, and social norms of the period during which a text was produced. When delving into the characters that populate Byzantine texts, we notice a predominance of elite male characters who are overrepresented at the expense of other individuals. As early as in 1998, Elizabeth A. Clark noted that the voices of real women remain elusive in premodern literary works. This observation can be extended to other social groups, including non-elite and non-binary individuals, such as peasants, servants, eunuchs, disabled persons, and eventually even the members of the Byzantine elite. Subsequently, if we cannot hear the real people, can the characters supply any insights into the Byzantine society and culture? Whose voices do actually speak? These questions and considerations lie at the core of our research project, which focuses on female characters in the late Byzantine literature.nnTo foster a more focused scholarly debate, we invite researchers to present papers addressing various facets of character construction in Byzantine texts. We encourage a cross-generic approach, examining both the factual characters of historiographic genres and the fictional characters of hagiography and verse narratives, and also aim at scrutinizing both major and minor characters in narrative literature as well as narrative sections of non-narrative genres. We wish to explore the representation of gender and of marginalized characters but also invite papers that focus on the relations between individuals and the environment.nnWe welcome presentations exploring (but not restricted to) the following topics: n• The construction of major and minor characters in Byzantine literaturen• Techniques and devices producing gender in textsn• Processes of categorization and individuationn• The connection of character construction with other narrative categories such as space and timen• The relation between characters and audiencesn• The intersectionalities of gender and class in character representation

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

M - Conference organization

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60206 - Specific literatures

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA23-06509S" target="_blank" >GA23-06509S: Cherchez la femme. Female Characters in Late Byzantine Literature</a><br>

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2024

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Event location

Praha

Event country

CZ - CZECH REPUBLIC

Event starting date

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Event ending date

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Total number of attendees

28

Foreign attendee count

20

Type of event by attendee nationality

WRD - Celosvětová akce