Helsinki

Helleno-Nordica will host an international and interdisciplinary three day-conference Humanist Greek (HUG) — Perspectives for a New Field of Studies, August 23–25 2018. The conference location is the National Library of Finland.

The deadline for abstracts is March 1, 2018.

“Humanist Greek” (or Renaissance Greek, an archaizing variant of Greek) refers to the Greek language and Greek texts composed by the Humanists from the Renaissance onwards. Humanist  Greek can be seen as a sister concept to Neo-Latin. However, Humanist Greek literature has gone largely unnoticed until recently with the sudden appearance of research articles, even books (e.g., Hellenisti! edited by Stefan Weise), anthologies coming-to-be, and databases containing HUG texts. The aim of this conference is to map the area of this new, growing field of study.

In this interdisciplinary conference on Humanist Greek, we consider the scope and meaning of the phenomenon and the texts written in this archaizing form of Greek. We invite papers dealing with topics such as:

– the concept of Humanist Greek / Renaissance Greek / etc. vs Neo-Latin

– representative/interesting/central texts in Humanist Greek

– writers of Humanist Greek from a specific region or university

– linguistic features of Humanist Greek texts or one particular text

– editing Humanist Greek texts

– imitation strategies of Humanist Greek – of Homer, Hesiod, etc.

– relationship with contemporary (modern) Greek, especially “Church Greek” (liturgical Greek)

– sociolinguistic approaches: who wrote to whom and why – social networks

– translations: when were HUG texts translated into Latin or a local vernacular?

There is no conference fee and there is a chance (especially for students) to be considered for a travel grant.

Please send a ca. 300-word abstract for a 20-minute paper in English or German to

tua.korhonenhelsinkifi and erkki.sironenhelsinkifi no later than March 1, 2018.

Please include in a separate file your affiliation, e-mail address, and a short list of relevant publications. We will inform/notify you of acceptance by April 30, 2018 An exhibition on Humanist Greek imprints and manuscripts as well as Greek textbooks and dictionaries from the early modern period will be arranged  as an annex of the conference. A guided tour to Porvoo Gymnasium Library, will be available for the participants of the conference.