Greek Dialogues - Lector in fabula? Encoding the reader’s response in imperial literature

Date and Time: Tuesday, 26th November, 2024 at 17:00h GMT

Online: Access details below

Venue: Room G.21, Faculty of Classics, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 9DA

We continue the 2024-25 Greek Dialogues seminar series with a talk by Lewis-Gibson Visiting Research Fellow Dr. Myriam Diarra (Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier.) Diarra’s presentation will explore the complex world of Greek imperial literature, focusing on the physician Galen (c. 130–200 CE) and the satirist Lucian of Samosata (c. 125–180 CE): two influential figures from the Second Sophistic (a cultural movement roughly spanning the 1st to 3rd centuries CE and characterised by a revival of classical rhetoric and an emphasis on ornate, often performative, language.)

Through their distinct literary approaches, Myriam will shed light on how these authors navigated a rapidly changing cultural landscape. By examining Galen’s medical treatises and Lucian’s anti-biographies, Diarra will offer new insights into how these texts respond to the evolving dynamics of intellectual authority and reader reception in the late antique period.

"My research focuses on Greek imperial literature, particularly the much-debated Second Sophistic or postclassical corpus (Whitmarsh 2013). Late antique Greek texts are often considered postmodern, and one of my research interests is to examine their metadiscursive and theoretical content.

In this context, my talk will centre on two authors associated with this intellectual movement, whose works occupy different places on the literary spectrum: Galen and Lucian of Samosata. I aim to demonstrate the value of a pragmatic approach to studying imperial authors who wrote within an increasingly complex culture of reading (Johnson 2010), characterized by the interplay of orality, writing, and both individual and collective reading. These authors were highly conscious of their own reception.

Lucian will serve as an example of an author with an extremely controlling persona. This is evident in his two anti-biographies: Alexander, or the False Prophet and The Passing of Peregrinus. In these aggressive bioi, which can be interpreted as fierce and merciless memorial battles, Lucian uses an epistolary framework to construct effective reader surrogates, manipulating readers into accepting his highly questionable messages.

Galen, by contrast, demonstrates a less coercive concern for reader response. I will examine excerpts from The Art of Medicine and Anatomical Procedures to illustrate how the “Prince of Medicine” (Mattern 2013) was acutely aware of the limitations of written medical treatises. Galen developed textual strategies to address the lack of visual and physical elements inherent in textual teaching, compared to the more effective practice of public demonstrations. I will show how he crafted sophisticated didactic methods to compensate for the absence of oral instruction."

Topic: Greek Dialogues - - Lector in fabula? Encoding the reader’s response in imperial literature
Date and Time: Tuesday 26th November, 2024 17:00h GMT

Join Zoom Meeting: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/88113239600?pwd=XOqjMHkK9y0fLiSued8zcXalc9UD7t.1

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Meeting ID: 881 1323 9600
Passcode: 160843

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