[MGSA-L] Princeton Hellenic Studies Workshop: February 5, 2016

[Dimitri H. Gondicas]

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies



Workshop


On the Fate of the Classical
genera orationis in Byzantium

Alexander Riehle
University of Vienna
Stanley J. Seeger Visiting Research Fellow, Hellenic Studies



Respondent: John Haldon, History and Hellenic Studies


According to the almost unanimously accepted scholarly narrative of the fate of Greek rhetoric in post-classical times, with the rise of autocratic forms of government and the professionalization of law in the Hellenistic and Roman periods the "art of persuasion" lost its primary function to influence decision-making in the public sphere. As a consequence, forensic and deliberative oratory virtually vanished and only epideictic rhetoric survived, most commonly in the form of the "ceremonial eulogy". However, late antique and Byzantine rhetorical theory and education were still to a large extent concerned with aspects of rhetoric that would be relevant exclusively in forensic and deliberative contexts (particularly, stasis theory). This paper enquires into this seemingly paradox phenomenon by asking what forms and functions traditional means of argument could assume within new socio-political frameworks. For this purpose a wide array of texts from both secular and religious contexts will be looked at.
Alexander Riehle received his Ph.D. in Byzantine Studies from the University of Munich and is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies of the University of Vienna. He held a Junior Fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C. in 2009/10 and was a Visiting Professor at Central European University, Budapest in 2014. His research focuses on Byzantine literary culture, with a specialization in letter-writing and rhetoric. Forthcoming publications include a monograph on the letter collections of the late Byzantine statesman Nikephoros Choumnos, A Companion to Byzantine Epistolography and the Lexikon byzantinischer Autoren (co-edited with Michael Grünbart).



Friday, February 5, 2016

1:30 p.m.

Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103



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