Current Call for Papers – Network for the Study of Archaic and Classical Greek Song

Female voices in a public context: authorial articulation and mimetic representation in ancient Greek literature

University of Naples Federico II, June 24-26, 2025

8th Open International Conference of the Network for the Study of Archaic and Classical Greek Song

Organizing Committee: Giambattista D’Alessio, Luigi Battezzato, Cristina Pepe

Selection Committee: Giambattista D’Alessio, Luigi Battezzato, Nadine Le Meur, Cristina Pepe, Timothy Power

Organizing Secretary: Rita Saviano, Tiziano Presutti, Vittoria Vairo

[Framework/Funding: PRIN 2022/EU]

We would welcome proposals applying innovative and multi-faceted methodologies to the study of female-voiced poetry in the Ancient Greek world, combining anthropological and gender-studies approaches, with a strong focus on linguistic, textual and pragmatic aspects. Possible themes would include papers focusing on:

– the foundation of the authority of female poetic voices in Ancient Greece within the perspective of pragmatic linguistics;

– the role of the gendered voice in the complex relationship between ‘performative’ and ‘literary’ genres, and on the interplay between female authoriality and male-authored mimetic representation;

– the role and effect of differently gendered authors/performers in the history of re-performance, transmission and transformation of the ‘female voice’;

– the meta-literary role played by the staging of poetic female voices in drama;

– the dynamics of preservation and dissemination of poetry voiced by women and of female poetic voices in the ancient Greek world from the Archaic period onward;

– the female poetic voice as a key model in re-creations of female voices in philosophical prose;

– the way in which Greek rhetorical theory provided a descriptive and normative analysis of the female poetic voice, based on an ideological construct of femininity;

– the reception of Greek women’s poetry in the Humanism and in early Renaissance literatures;

– later receptions, and the role of Greek female poetic voices in the contemporary debate on gender issues.

Proposals for 20-minute presentations in English, to be followed by 10-minute discussion, should be submitted to the Organizing Secretary (convegnofemalevoices@gmail.com) in the form of an anonymous abstract (max. 300 words, *.pdf file), with a brief bibliography, not longer than 10 items, by 30 October 2024. We will inform all applicants of our decision by 20 December 2024.

The conference will take place on site, but links will be provided to view the presentations online (registration will be required). Speakers will be offered free accommodation, but no contribution can be made to travel expenses. Registration to attend the conference on site will be announced after the publication of the program.

Please note that this initial prospect may change according to the kind and amount of proposals.