Digital Approaches to Epic Speech: a forum for collaborative research, student exchange and training

31 May –2 June 2023, Mount Allison University, New Brunswick, Canada

Mount Allison University is located within the territory of Mi’kma’ki, the unceded, ancestral territory of the Mi’kmaq.

Funding for this event was provided by a SSHRC Connection Grant, the University of Rostock, the University of Amsterdam, and Mount Allison University. 

Support for the DICES project was provided by a SSHRC Insight Development Grant, the University of Rostock, and by a Mount Allison University President’s Research and Creative Activities Award. 

Special thanks to the University of Rostock’s Digital Library Division for hosting the DICES server.

Weds. 31 May

1:00–2:00 Registration

2:00–2:30 Welcome
Christopher Forstall and Berenice Verhelst

2:30–3:30 Session 1

• Characters’ Intentional Repetitions in Homeric Epic
  • Ombretta Cesca, UNIL Lausanne (via Zoom)
  • Respondent: Elizabeth Minchin
• κερτομέω in context(s) in Greek epic poetry
  • Deborah Beck, University of Texas at Austin
  • Respondent: Ombretta Cesca (zoom)

3:30–4:00 Break

4:00–5:00 Student Session 1

• The goddess Juno as a transtextual speaker in the epic tradition from Virgil to Silius Italicus
  • Jule Andreeßen, University of Rostock
• Mother Mary in the Homerocentones of Empress Eudocia
  • Sara Didriksen, Aarhus University

5:30–6:30 Keynote Address: “Beyond Translation”
Gregory Crane, Tufts University
(Owens Art Gallery)

6:30–7:30 Reception (Owens Art Gallery)

Thurs., 1 June

8:00–9:30 Breakfast hackathon (Jennings Banquet Room)

10:00–11:00 Session 2

• The Language of the Homeric Heroes. Towards a treebank-based approach
  • Francesco Mambrini, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore 
  • Respondent: Deborah Beck
• Epic Speech and intertextuality: Astyoche’s prayer from Homer to the third century
  • Martina Delucchi, University of Bristol
  • Respondent: Rebekka Shirner (zoom)

11:00–11:30 Break

11:30–1:00 Session 3

• Evaluating Workplace Relationships in the Homeric Iliad: The Respective Contributions of DICES, ToM, and RET
  • Elizabeth Minchin, The Australian National University
  • Respondent: Jeff Rydberg-Cox (zoom)
• Speech and emotion in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica
  • Rebekka Schirner, University of Mainz (Zoom)
  • Respondent: William Dominik
• Listen to mummy! Epic mother speech and persuasion from Homer to Nonnus
  • Berenice Verhelst, University of Amsterdam and
  • Christopher Forstall, Mount Allison University
  • Respondent: Francesco Mambrini

1:00–2:30 Lunch

2:30–4:00 Session 4

• Clustering speakers and concepts in ancient epic as nodes within a network
  • Jeff Rydberg-Cox, University of Missouri-Kansas City (zoom)
  • Respondent: TJ Bolt
• Towards a Measure of Dialogism in Latin Epic
  • Patrick Burns, New York University
  • Respondent: Bernhard Söllradl

4:00–4:30 Break

4:30–5:30 Student Session 2

• Jupiter's speech characteristics: a socio-linguistic approach to the impact of status and gender in intra-divine discourse in Roman epic
  • Merle Kallet, University of Rostock
• Rhetorical strategies of divine deceit: The Olympian gods as master manipulators in Roman epic
  • Friederike Münch, University of Rostock

Fri., 2 June

8:00–9:30 Breakfast hackathon (Jennings Banquet Room)

9:30–11:00 Session 5

• Exhortations in Silius Italicus’ Punica
  • Christoph Schwameis, University of Vienna and
  • Jan Telg genannt Kortmann, University of Münster (Zoom)
  • Respondent: Berenice Verhelst
• Duelling Speeches and Livian Narrators in Silius Italicus' Punica
  • Charles Oughton, Brigham Young University
  • Respondent: Christoph Schwameis (zoom)
• ‘Desine grande loqui’. Characters and speeches in the Psychomachia of Prudentius
  • Roberto Chiappiniello, Redmaids' School, Bristol (zoom)
  • Respondent: Mélissande Tomcik

11:00–11:30 Break

11:30–1:00 Session 6

• Speaking Fake News in Flavian Epic
  • Mélissande Tomcik, University of Toronto
  • Respondent: Jan Telg gen. Kortmann (zoom)
• Between Epic and Epideictic: direct speech in Claudian’s Political Poems
  • Valéry Berlincourt, University of Geneva (zoom)
  • Respondent: Patrick Burns
• Themes, Emotions, And ‘Swerves’ in the Speeches of Achilles in Greek and Latin Literature
  • William Dominik, University of Lisbon, University of Otago
  • Respondent: Roberto Chiappiniello (zoom)

1:00–2:30 Lunch

2:30–3:30 Session 7

• Quantifying Genre. A Study in Tragic Voices in Roman Epic
  • Bernardt Söllradl, Paris Lodron University Salzburg
  • Respondent: Charles Oughton
• A Stylometric Analysis of Speech in Latin Epic Poetry
  • TJ Bolt, Lafayette College
  • Respondent: Martina Delucchi

3:30–4:00 Break

4:00–5:30 Round Table

Der zweite DICES-Workshops an der Mount Allison University stellte eine erneute Möglichkeit dar, das internationale DICES-Team in Person zusammenzubringen. So besuchten die Mount Allison University in einem zweiwöchigen Aufenthalt auch unsere dänische Studentin Sara Didriksen sowie die drei Studentinnen aus Rostock, Jule Andreeßen, Merle Kallet und Friederike Münch, welche seit Sommer 2022 auch in eigenen Forschungsanliegen tatkräftig durch das DICES-Projekt unterstützt werden.

Der Aufenthalt diente in erster Linie der Finalisierung der einzelnen Forschungsprojekte der Studentinnen. Die persönliche Arbeit im ganzen Team und der gegenseitige Austausch halfen allen, ihre Projekte voranzubringen und die Arbeit mit der DICES-Software zu vertiefen. Anschließend nutzten sie die einmalige Gelegenheit, ihre Projekte auf dem Workshop selbst erstmals einem Fachpublikum vorzustellen. Sie fügten sich nahtlos unter die weiteren Teilnehmer:innen des Workshops ein, erhielten wertvolles Feedback und Anregungen und stärkten ihre Kontakte zu den Teilnehmer:innen, welche sie bereits auf dem Workshop in Rostock kennengelernt hatten.

Daneben nutzten sie den Aufenthalt aber natürlich auch dafür, den Campus und das Team der Mount Allison University kennenzulernen und die Gegend rund um Sackville zu erkunden. So besuchten sie u.a. den charmaten Farmers' market von Sackville, die Crown Prince Frederik Island und Moncton.

Es war für alle ein gelungener Aufenthalt und ein freudiges Wiedersehen!

Wir danken der Mount Allison University, den Aufenthalt auf dem Campus möglich gemacht zu haben.

From 30 June 2022 to 2 July 2022 the first installment of our DICES-Workshops, entitled "Digital Approaches to Direct Speech Representation in Greek and Latin Epic" took place at the Heinrich Schliemann-Institute of Ancient Studies (HSI) and the Internationales Begegnungszentrum (IBZ) at the University of Rostock.

We are very grateful to all our colleagues for joining us both in person at Rostock and remotely on Zoom during this very work-intensive 3-day event.

It was a very productive and enjoyable workshop! We very much appreciate your enthusiasm for our joint project and your input!

We look forward to seeing you all again at our second workshop at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Canada, from 30 May to 2 June 2023!

The first workshop of the DICES project group “Digital Approaches to Direct Speech Representation in Greek and Latin Epic” from 30 June to 2 July 2022 also marked the first opportunity during which we were able to unite most members our international team at the University of Rostock.

We are very grateful that two key members of our Canadian team, our student research assistants Anne Lautenschlager and Ava Waugh from Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, were able to join us at the Heinrich Schliemann-Institute of Ancient Studies despite numerous travel complications and conflicting commitments.

Without missing a beat, they instantly joined forces with our student research assistants at Rostock and not only participated in the workshop but also helped us prepare and run the event with their great ideas, seemingly unlimited energy, good spirit, and utmost professionalism.

We are very thankful to have such an incredible team on both sides of the pond!

Many thanks to Anne and Ava for all their support during this workshop!

Sara Didriksen from Aarhus University is a voluntary student research assistant for the DICES project.

After many exchanges via zoom and mail, she finally got to meet the different members of the DICES team in person during her stay at the University of Rostock from 25 June to 3 July 2022, where she also assisted the team with and participated in the DICES workshop from 30 June to 2 July 2022.

As part of her MA programme in Classics at Aarhus (Aarhus supervisor: Professor Evert van Emde Boas), she will be doing a research project with DICES, as one of the international partners of the Rostock students’ HERMES-project.

For her own research paper she will be working on speech attributions in Homer and the Homerocentones. You see her here working hard on data entry for the Homerocentones, which will soon to be added to the DICES database.

Welcome to the team, Sara!

Three students from the Heinrich Schliemann Institute of Ancient Studies, Jule Andreeßen (English, Latin), Merle Kallet (History, Greek, Latin) and Friederike Münch (German, Latin), are receiving a one-year research grant from the HERMES-Junior-Programme of the University of Rostock to conduct a joint project with students from Denmark, Canada, and the Netherlands. In their project, they will apply selected digital research methods to analyse direct speech acts by the Olympian gods in Roman epic poetry from Virgil to Silius Italicus.

Among other activities, two joint group meetings of all participants are planned at the Heinrich Schliemann-Institute of the University of Rostock (from the end of June to early July 2022) and at Mount Allison University in Canada (from the end of May to early June 2023).

Project group: Jule Andreeßen, Merle Kallet, Friederike Münch

Project title Die direkten Reden der olympischen Götter im römischen Epos von Vergil bis Silius Italicus

Project duration: 30 June 2022 – 30 June 2023

Forstall, C. W./Finkmann, S./Verhelst, B.: Towards a linked open data resource for direct speech acts in Greek and Latin epic, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 2022 (Open Access).

Abstract:

The Digital Initiative for Classics: Epic Speeches (DICES) research group reports here on preliminary work to integrate research on Greek and Latin epic speeches into the larger ecosystem of linked open data (LOD) for classical scholarship. The ability to collate speech data from different researchers and to leverage external repositories of texts and characters opens up new possibilities for interrogation of the epic corpus. We briefly survey the current state of scholarship on epic speeches and of the digital infrastructure on which we propose to build. We outline a model for harmonizing speech data across studies and aligning it with existing LOD standards. Finally, we discuss some early proof-of-concept results and the larger implications of this approach for the field. The long-term aim of the DICES project is to build a database of metadata on direct speech in Greek and Latin epic, not only covering canonical texts such as Homer and Virgil, but also including the less-studied texts of the late antique period, which will benefit greatly both from the increased accessibility and also from the diachronic perspective afforded by a corpus-based approach. The envisioned database also has the potential to include diachronic data from additional genres and languages at a later stage.

Mare Balticum Fellow Prof. Dr. Christopher Forstall at the Heinrich Schliemann-Institute of Ancient Studies from April 2022 to July 2022

The Prorector for Research and Knowledge Transfer supports interdisciplinary research stays (max. 3 months) of national and international scientists at the University of Rostock as part of the Mare Balticum Fellowship Program since 2019.

Prof. Dr. Christopher Forstall from Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Canada, will stay at the Heinrich Schliemann Institute of the University of Rostock from April 20 to July 14, 2022 to conduct research within the framework of the DICES project.

Scheduled events with Professor Forstall at the University of Rostock:

• 17 May 2022, 1:00 p.m.: Interdisciplinary Networking Meeting (via Zoom).
• 7-10 June 2022, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m: R-Workshop: "Digital Research Methods for Intertextual Media" (via Zoom)
• 30 June-2 July 2022: International Workshop "Digital Approaches to Direct Speech Representation in Greek and Latin Epic," IBZ and Heinrich Schliemann-Institute of Ancient Studies (hybrid event).

Prof. Dr. Berenice Verhelst from the University of Amsterdam will stay at the Heinrich Schliemann Institute of Ancient Studies at the University of Rostock as a Visiting Scholar for two weeks from late June to early July 2022 to work on the DICES project with Simone Finkmann and Christopher Forstall.

Her main research interests are late antique poetry, especially Nonnus' Dionysiaca and the epic tradition, as well as the Greek Epyllion. She specializes in narratology, discourse analysis, and genre theory.

Joint event with Professor Verhelst at the University of Rostock:

• 30 June-2 July 2022: International Workshop "Digital Approaches to Direct Speech Representation in Greek and Latin Epic", IBZ and Heinrich Schliemann-Institute of Ancient Studies (hybrid event).