Performing Texts

6th Open International Conference
July 1-5, 2020

Anargyrios and Korgialenios School of Spetses (AKSS), Greece
organized by Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC, Harvard University
(CHS US) on behalf of the Network for the Study of Archaic and Classical Greek Song
and supported by
Center for Hellenic Studies (Greece), Harvard University (CHS Greece)

Important update!

Following the COVID-19 related developments, as well as the guidelines from the Greek and international authorities and Harvard University, the Organizing Committee of the Conference decided against going ahead with this year's conference for safety reasons.
The Conference will be postponed for next summer. The exact dates of the 2021 Conference will be announced soon.

Some of the most notable recent work on Greek lyric poetry represents a critical departure from the preoccupation with occasion and performance that has largely defined its study for the past several decades. There is an emergent rediscovery of lyric as “literature,” and with it a growing sense that the focus on context and function can inhibit meaningful engagement with the full discursive, artistic, and ideational complexity and distinctiveness of the texts themselves. Renewed attention to the re-performance and reception of lyric poems has similarly challenged the interpretive privileging of (primary) performance contexts. Yet, while performance and occasion may no longer be considered the last word in the study of Greek lyric, there is no escaping the fact of their formative influence on the texts we read (even if that influence was not as simple or direct as has often been thought).
This conference aims to open what we hope will be an expansive, mutually enriching dialogue between performance-based approaches to lyric and the current (re)turn to its more literary and aesthetic aspects and effects.

The conference will host 36 speakers and 14 discussants from all over the world (US, Greece, Brazil, Italy, UK, Germany, etc.), divided in 14 sessions. The Conference-program starts on the afternoon of July 1 with an introductory session chaired by Gregory Nagy (Harvard University), Lucia Athanassaki (University of Crete), and Tim Power (Rutgers University), and it will close on July 5-noon with Richard P. Martin (Stanford University) and Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi (Stanford University) joining the Conference’s Scientific Committee for a round table discussion.

*In light of recent developments and following our discussions with the AKSS, we would like to inform you that in case the organizers decide to postpone or cancel the conference, all participants will be fully refunded by the AKSS for the “cost of participation”, which -depending on your registration- covers lodging, meals, coffee breaks, and attendance, but not travel or any other expenses that participants may incur*

*Speakers and discussants do not need to register.*

Main contributors: