Retracing Connections |

31 Jan A Viking in the Sun: Women and Power

Posted at 13:40h in Calls

The research project A Viking in the Sun: Harald Hardrada, the Mediterranean, and the Nordic World, between the late Viking Age and the Eve of the Crusades (University of Edinburgh) welcomes proposals for the project’s second symposium.

This symposium Women and Power explores how powerful women shaped Harald’s formative travels, from Ingegerd of Sweden in Kievan Rus’ to Empress Zoe of Byzantium and Rasad in Fatimid Egypt. Yet this symposium will also be an opportunity to develop a wide-raging discussion and comparison on the broad theme of women and power across the varied cultures with which Harald interacted.

Please submit proposals by 3 March 2024 to gianluca.raccagni@ed.ac.uk.

22 Dec Two evenings with “Songs of the Night” – Romanos the Melodist in Danish

Posted at 13:53h in Narrative Cosmonauts

Two weeks ago, the RC team member Uffe Holmsgaard Eriksen (SDU) presented his new book “Nattens Sange” (“Songs of the Night”, published by Atlanten) at two events in Denmark. The book is the first monograph on the Byzantine poet Romanos the Melodist (485-560 CE) in Danish, containing an introduction to the life and work of the poet, translations of four hymns and a commentary on each hymn.

The book has been beautifully accompanied by artwork of the Danish artist, Peter Brandes (b. 1944). Furthermore, the bishop of the Danish diocese of Ribe, Elof Westergaard, has written a foreword to the book.

The first event, which took place on Tuesday 5 December at the Aarhus cathedral, was an interview by pastor Henrik Lund with Uffe Holmsgaard Eriksen and Peter Brandes. The interview was accompanied by a performance of medieval melodies to two of the hymns translated in the book, as well as the oldest known melody to Romanos’s famous Christmas hymn “Today the Virgin gives birth to the one who is above all being”. The hymns were performed by Uffe Holmsgaard Eriksen, assisted by two singers, Mads Djernes and Christian Oluf Verdoner. The melodies have not been sung in this manner since the thirteenth century. The melodies were kindly transcribed from the manuscript St Petersburg 674 (c. 1270) by Christian Troelsgård (University of Copenhagen) and Ioannis Arvanitis (Athens).

The second event was hosted by the diocese of Ribe on Wednesday, 6^th of December. At this event, Elof Westergaard, Uffe Holmsgaard Eriksen and Peter Brandes presented the book and spoke about the relevance of Romanos the Melodist today. Westergaard and Brandes both pointed to the influence Romanos has had on Swedish poets such as Hjalmar Gullberg and Gunnar Ekelöf as well as on the 1979 Noble literature prize laurate, the Greek author Odysseas Elytis. Romanos has accompanied both Brandes and Westergaard for many decades as a continuing source of inspiration. Brandes, who has done artwork for several translations of ancient poets such as Homer, Vergil, Ovid and Sappho, as well as modern poetry, ranks Romanos as one of the best poets in literary history.

Since its publication on 15^th of September 2023, “Nattens Sange” is close to being out of stock, as it was printed in a limited edition of 300 copies.

Text and images: Uffe Holmsgaard Eriksen

1) The cover of the book “Nattens Sange”
2) Uffe Holmsgaard Eriksen (m) and Peter Brandes (r) discuss Romanos with pastor Henrik Lund (l) at the Catherdral of Aarhus on December 5, 2023.
3) The team behind the book, from l to r: bishop Elof Westergaard, publisher Fedja Wierød Borčak, Uffe Holmsgaard Eriksen and artist Peter Brandes.

22 Dec Workshops on Religious Narrative

Posted at 13:18h in Workshops

What is a religious narrative? Do religious narratives function in different ways than non-religious narratives? How may we fruitfully analyze and interpret religious narratives? These are questions that were discussed at two workshops in May 2022 at the University of Southern Denmark and again at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam in November 2023.

Speaking animals, multiple universes, superhuman powers and entities are phenomena that are mostly associated with fiction, especially fantasy, superhero stories and science fiction. In much pre-modern literature, however, these phenomena do not necessarily signal fictionality, but truth in some sense. St George killed a dragon, the Greek past told of monster like the Minotaur or battles between titans and gods, and the mysterious annunaki mentioned on Sumerian tablets straddled the world of the gods and the humans.

If we read these texts through the lens of a post-Enlightenment, science-based worldview, we might misread their communicative purpose and potential. Narratology, as it has been defined, refined and further developed since its nascence as a literary discipline in the 1960’s, has mostly been based on this modern worldview and will thus categorize anything that defies this worldview as “unnatural”.

At the two workshops we wanted to engage critically with this assumption. In line with other proponents of a diachronic narratology, the general opinion of the participants at the two workshops was that what might strike modern readers today as unnatural, supernatural or outright impossible to believe in, had not been unnatural for the authors and readers who wrote and read these stories originally. Rather, in religious narratives “unnatural” elements do not signal that the author fictionalizes but that they use imaginative language in order to convey a higher, spiritual truth.

For that reason, narratological concepts such as author, character, plot, time and space are destabilized when applied to religious narratives. At both workshops, scholars working on religious narratives ranging from Mesopotamian epics, to the Bible, Christian hagiography and modern fantasy-based religion discussed how and to what purpose narratological concepts can be reconfigured to better analyze pre-modern religious literature.

As an outcome of the two workshops, the aim is to publish a survey of different narratological concepts adapted to analyze religious narratives. The book will act as a seminal exploration of the field with each chapter dedicated to a particular narratological concept and its possible reconfigurations to make it heuristically adept for analyzing religious narratives. The survey will be edited by the conveners, Klazina Staat from VU and Uffe Holmsgaard Eriksen from Retracing Connections/SDU, in collaboration with Markus Davidsen from the University of Leiden.

Text and image: Uffe Holmsgaard Eriksen

13 Dec Collective Volume: Stories in the Story

Posted at 20:20h in Calls

Retracing Connections programme is looking for papers that relate to the Life of Theodore of Edessa, a complex hagiography made up of several stories, which was authored (or redacted) in Greek in the eleventh century to be quickly disseminated in Arabic, Georgian, and Slavonic. Although the story was composed in Byzantium, its “storyworld” was set in the Muslim empire and had in its imagination crossed imperial borders already before its many translations.

Expression of interest and further information: mirjam.lindgren_hjalm@lingfil.uu.se.
Deadline for abstract: 31 June 2024
Deadline for submitted paper: 31 October 2025

13 Dec From multitudes to multipedes: the exhibition is finally ready!

Posted at 19:38h in Narrative Cosmonauts

Tuesday 28 November, day before the opening

Milan and the team are still working on the exhibition, putting everything in place. For those of us who are used to long-term planning and unreasonably long printing processes, this is a completely different experience. Last night, Milan’s co-curator Nilüfer was still working on her text for the catalogue. It seems stressful, but it is calm anticipation rather than stress that marks the atmosphere of the gallery when I visit Depo in late afternoon.

The photographs for the catalogue are being taken, now that almost every work is in place. Some artists have arrived to help set things up. I have a chat with Walid Siti about his “Under construction”, representing a transitional phase of the tower of Babel. Milan explains how he has been involved in its making over the last few days. I meet Fikos who has painted “Enemies”, inspired both by stories that travel between languages and by the illuminated manuscripts that carry them across. Milan shows me the work of Alev Ersan and explains that it is based on Kalila and Dimna.

As I leave Depo, they are putting up our poster outside. It feels unreal that the rather vague ideas we had just a year ago have taken shape in order to become something like this. I’m deeply impressed by the work of Nilüfer and Milan, along with all the artists. I know that the opening tomorrow evening will be a different experience, so I’m glad I had the opportunity to visit today.

Dinner is at Galaktion, the Georgian restaurant in which Christian, Stratis and I once celebrated that we had finished the application for funding that resulted in Retracing Connections. That was in January 2019 and I had just arrived in Istanbul as director of the Swedish Research Institute. Is the circle closed or are there only ever an infiniate number of overlapping circles? The concept of Retracing Connections appears to mark everything we do. Or perhaps I’m just a little tired.

In the evening, Kirathaane hosts a panel discussion on translation between Alev Ersan and Matthew Reynolds, moderated by Milan. The rather small room is filled to the brim, the discussion is lively, spirits high. Milan must be exhausted after weeks of hard work with the exhibition, but he is doing an excellent job and seems to be enjoying himself. It is wonderful to see how people meet and talk across the traditional but unnecessary boundaries between academia and the arts, translators and translation scholars side by side. Kiraathane is just the right place to have this event, a place filled with words and warmth – thank you so much for having us.

Wednesday 29 November, day of the opening

Dimitris, Lilli and Marijana are sightseeing as I work away in the lobby of Büyük Londra. It looks the same as it did when I first stayed there in 1995, coming to Istanbul as part of a group of doctoral students interested in Byzantium. Retracing Connections indeed…

The Retracing Connections scholars and Matthew are invited for a drink at the Swedish Research Institute. We are admiring the view over the Bosphoros from the director’s flat that is now Olof’s and where we – Christian, Stratis and I – once worked intensely on the application and came up with the idea to include the budget for an exhibition, having no idea how much work it would involve.

Then we walk down the steep hill to Depo, where Milan is waiting and there is already quite a crowd when we arrive. The rain is pouring down outside; inside the gallery it’s warm and cozy. There is Georgian wine, numerous languages, and a great mixture of familiar and new faces.

Suddenly the catalogue is ready, Milan dashes off to upload it on our website, then comes back to join us for the evening’s event: a free verse conversation between setareh fatehi and Ogutu Muraya around one of the works: “(i) your story of me”. It’s a moving performance, connecting voices and movements and people across continents. Milan is not the only one with tears in his eyes.

Later, after we have left Depo and had a quick dinner at Mercan, we sit again in the lobby of Büyük Londra. Milan and the artists are out celebrating but we are all rather tired – though Uffe, as always, is still filled with energy.

Eventually we say good night and go to our rooms, most of us are flying home tomorrow. For us, it feels like the end. But obviously, the exhibition is not over. This is only where it begins.

Text and images: Ingela Nilsson.
1. Milan and Under Construction (Walid Siti); 2. Milan and this contamination, this crossroads, this accident here (Alev Ersan); 3. Hanging the exhibition poster at Depo; 4. Milan at Kiraathane; 5. Matthew Reynolds, Alev Ersan and Milan at the Kiraathane event; 6. Georgian heroes at Galaktion; 7. Lilli, Marijana and Dimitris sightseeing in Istanbul; 8. Ingela working at Büyük Londra; 9. Opening night; 10. Lilli and El Llamado (Daniel Otero Torres); 11. Matthew Reynolds and (i) your story of me (setareh fatehi); 12. Ingela, Marianne and Helin; 13. Visitors and We, Islands (Stephanie Misa); 14. A free verse conversation (i) your story of me between setareh fatehi and Ogutu Muraya. 15. Visitors listening to the free verse conversation. 16. Dinner at Mercan. 17. Uffe at Büyük Londra.