Session 2: Stories and Histories
The section will focus on the Greek culture's impact on historiography and storytelling or, more generally speaking, on the relationship between history and the manifold ways of dealing with it. There will be four main objectives.
Firstly, we shall confront different modes of perception of the past, taking as point of departure two contrasting features often understood as mutually excluding each other, namely the professional view of the modern historian and traditional manners of remembrance, mythmaking, and storytelling. Taking into consideration the ancient Greek historiography, where such opposition did not exist, we shall try to overcome this rigid antithesis and to look for intermediate phenomena between these concepts instead, by considering their relationship and interconnections and by crossing the border between traditional, even orthodox, distinctions between myth and reality, facts and fiction. Thus we enter the sphere where professional or even scientific hist... More | Comments
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Stories and Histories - Period One
Nowhere is the boundary between story and history more permeable than in Greek accounts of beginnings.
The depictions of birth/early childhood years and death in narratives of gods, heroes, and historic individuals share commonalities and are mutually influential.
The Greek tragic mask created the focus that guided the spectators of tragedy between the foveal and the peripheral, provided the visual means to denote a performance and most importantly, produced the intimacy necessary to facilitate individual emotional responses.
A reexamination of nineteenth and twentieth century archaeological discoveries in Asia and examination of textual sources indicate that Greek was a living language in northern India as late as the 7th and 8th centuries CE, and establish evidence of trade between India and Greece.
Interpretations of archaeological remains affect society's reconstructions and understandings of the past.
Stories and Histories - Period Two
Plato’s Republic poses difficult questions about art, its accuracy, and its effect on the viewer. What insights can these questions provide into the nature of political portraiture and the role of the portraitist?
Mehmed the Conqueror devised "historical" and ideological justifications for his conquest of Constantinople.
The life of 19th century Ottoman ruler İbrahim Edhem Pasha is a fascinating blend of facts and legend. His life, colored by war, nationalism, and politics, will eventually shape the career of his son Osman Hamdi Bey – a famed figure in Ottoman history.
The Romantic poets' ideological development culminated in their support of and participation in the Greek Revolution of 1821.
Stories and Histories - EUNIC Papers
An analysis of the story of Tomyris in Herodotus’ Histories reveals a unique female revenge motif.
Stories and Histories - The Adventure of Human Curiosity