Lezing: Micaela Brembilla (Uppsala Universitet) – Mustio and his Gynaecia – pontifex of Soranus or just a very lucky guy?

Tijdens haar uitwisseling met onze afdeling in het voorjaar van 2024 zal doctoranda Micaela Brembilla van de Universiteit van Uppsala op 18 april een lezing geven voor de Ghent Centre of Late Antiquity (GCLA). Ze zal er spreken over de historische achtergrond en de manuscripttraditie van Mustio’s Laatlatijnse vertaling van een Grieks werk over vrouwengeneeskunde (Gynaecia). 

Abstract

We do not have much information about Mustio, besides that he is the author of a Latin text of gynaecology called Gynaecia, an adaptation of the Γυναικεῖα of Soranus of Ephesus. Even about the text itself we have many questions, since we are not certain about either its structure, its language, or its relationship with the Greek model. What we do know, however, is that the Gynaecia, particularly some chapters, was read and used for centuries after its production, as a channel for past gynaecological knowledge through the Middle Ages to the present day.

In this talk, I will introduce Mustio and the Gynaecia, and present what we think was their context of production, from an historical, geographical and theoretical point of view. We will then take a look at the fortunes of the text in the centuries that followed, trying to understand the reasons behind its popularity and transmission.

Lezing: Micaela Brembilla (Uppsala Universitet) – The new critical edition of Mustio’s Gynaecia – prolegomena and problems

Tijdens haar uitwisseling met onze afdeling in het voorjaar van 2024 zal doctoranda Micaela Brembilla van de Universiteit van Uppsala op 25 april een lezing geven voor de DiaLing onderzoeksgroep. Ze zal er spreken over de talige kant van haar onderzoek naar Mustio’s Laatlatijnse vertaling van een Grieks werk over vrouwengeneeskunde (Gynaecia). 

Abstract

The Gynaecia of Mustio, a medical treatise dated to the 6th century AD, counts only one critical edition to date; it has been published by Valentin Rose in 1882, the first scholar to have the possibility to read and study the three main witnesses of the manuscript tradition. This edition is clearly an essential starting point for the study of the text; however, the scholar edited a Latin that seems too classical for the time period and the genre of the Gynaecia, choosing, when needed, to follow the more recent and less vulgar of the manuscripts.

In this talk, I would like to explain the reasons behind the necessity of a new critical edition; we will then try to delineate a panoramic of the new language of the Gynaecia – a later and more vulgar Latin – focusing on its special lexicon and, finally, on the main problems and questions still in need of further research.

Waterways and literary channels of the pre-modern world

This workshop explores the various appearances and meanings of water in pre-modern literary cultures. What role did the geography of waterways play in the transregional movement of authors, texts, styles, and poetics? What commonalities and differences can we identify across pre-modern literary canons, including those in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and other vernaculars? How does water function as a literary motif and/or device in various traditions? Which (metaphorical) meanings are attached to it? And what light can our understanding of pre-modern human-nature relationships shine on modern-day ecological concerns?

The aim of this workshop is to explore these questions through a variety of disciplinary, literary and linguistic contexts and approaches. In doing so, it seeks to build on a growing body of scholarship that turns the critical lens onto water. We kindly invite people who are interested in this workshop, on the 4th and 5th of April at St-Peter’s Abbey.

You can register via the following link: https://event.ugent.be/registration/waterways.

Zomercursus Latijn 2024

In 2024 organiseert de UGent voor de eerste keer een zomercursus Latijn. Je maakt er kennis met de gebouwen en gezichten verbonden aan de lessen Latijn binnen de opleiding ‘Taal- en Letterkunde: twee talen’. Wie overweegt om enkele weken later te starten met de opleiding, kan proeven van de verschillende leerlijnen (taal, literatuur en cultuur) van de opleiding tijdens verkorte colleges op maat van generatiestudenten. Daarnaast krijg je de kans om je beheersing van het Latijn goed in te schatten en bij te spijkeren tijdens de theorielessen en oefeningensessies. Ook wie niet (meteen) de opleiding wil starten maar geboeid is door de Latijnse taal en literatuur is dus zeker welkom! Het programma ligt grotendeels vast, maar hou rekening met (beperkte) verschuivingen. Je kan je inschrijven via dit formulier. Bij vragen kan je een e-mail sturen naar latijn@ugent.be. Graag tot binnenkort!

Flyer Zomercursus Latijn

UGent-UCL Latin Studies Workshop 2023: Claudian’s De Raptu Prosperinae

UGent-UCL Latin Studies Workshop 2023 : Claudian’s De Raptu Prosperinae

This workshop will bring together two Masters seminars on late antique Latin literature at UGent and UCLouvain, as well as the research teams of those seminar’s organisers, respectively, Marco Formisano (UGent) and Aaron Kachuck (UCL). The workshop will be held on Saturday 16 December 2023 at UGent. This workshop will feature presentations in English by students of the two seminars on Claudian’s De Raptu Prosperinae, with focuses on approaches at the centre of these respective courses, including ecocriticism, the relationship between cult and literature in late antiquity, and surface reading vs depth reading as applied to late antique literature, and, in particular, to the works of Claudian. Presentations will be geared to opening up collective discussion, with inter-university and inter-regional exchanges at the core of this workshop’s mission. Students will prepare presentations (based on coursework) in concertation with their respective course-leaders; preparing and delivering presentations in English, and discussing course material in English, will contribute to goals of internationalization and preparing students for future work in and out of the university involving 1) English-language contexts and partnerships, 2) work between the two language-communities of Belgium, and 3) application of course-material and skills in professional contexts. Doctoral students of Marco Formisano and Aaron Kachuck, as well as other doctoral students from the respective universities, will also take part as discussants, thus facilitating exchange on the both the levels of pedagogy and of research, and serving as a platform for furthering ties between the two universities and language communities, as well as serving as a pilot for such Ghent-UCL Latin studies Workshops in the future.

Schedule 

9h45 

Workshop Part 1 : Claudian, De Raptu Prosperinae, Book I, Surface vs Depth as a Reading Approach (aka “Surfice (sic!) reading”) (UGent)

11h15 Coffee break
11h30 Workshop Part II : Claudian, De Raptu Proserpinae, Book III (UCL), Ecocriticism and the Relationship between Cult and Latin Literature
13h Lunch
14h30 Collective Tour of Ghent