Blog about the Eastern Roman Empire or the Christian Byzantine Empire. Also about the archaeologist and historian Dr. Bernard Mulholland. Bernard is author of the novel Nazareth Quest, which is an intense thriller set in Israel. He has also published Ratio Analysis of Financial KPI in the Higher Education Sector, The Early Byzantine Christian Church, Early Byzantine Ireland, and Navan Fort Ireland. He is also author of The Man From MENSA, which is a history of this iconic high-IQ society.
King’s College London offers two six-week courses (3 July – 11 August 2023) in Ancient Greek and Latin. These courses offer students who have not previously had the opportunity to study Greek or Latin intensive training designed to bring them from complete beginners to a point where they are able to read simple texts. They are ideal for students who intend to study for a Masters or Doctoral degree to get ahead during the summer, thus acquiring an essential skill for their future research. They are also appropriate for teachers, undergraduates, mature students and anyone with an interest in the Hellenic or Roman world.
It is also possible for complete beginners to take just the first half of the course (3 – 21 July), and for those who already have a basic knowledge to take the second half of the course (24 July – 11 August).
Students may choose to study on campus or online.
Students may choose to take the courses with or without an examination (£900 without exam; £1150 with exam per 3-week course).
Bursaries are available. For further details and to make an application:
We offer two Intensive Courses in Ancient Greek and Latin. These courses are six weeks long, with the option to study either the first three week block (for absolute beginners) or the second three week block (for students at intermediate level).
You may choose to study on-campus or online.
Session 1: Beginners’ Ancient Greek or Beginner’s Latin: Monday 3 July to Friday 21 July 2023
Session 2: Intermediate Ancient Greek or Intermediate Latin: Monday 24 July to Friday 11 August 2023.
Who are these courses for?
These courses offer those who have not previously had the opportunity to study Ancient Greek or Latin intensive training designed to bring you from complete beginners to being able to read simple texts in Ancient Greek or Latin. These sessions are ideal for:
Anyone with an interest in the Hellenic or Roman world.
Including:
Those intend to study for a Masters or Doctoral degree and wish to get ahead over the summer.
Undergraduates and Postgraduates from any university, or Y12 and Y13 school pupils.
As well as being highly intensive, the courses offer a friendly and supportive environment. There are workshops by guest lecturers offering an introduction to skills such as epigraphy, and we also hope to offer guided tours or behind-the-scenes sessions at the British Museum.
Accommodation
If you wish to book accommodation to join our ancient languages summer school, you can find further information about King’s accommodation here. (Accommodation fees are not included in the ancient languages summer school).
Bursaries
We are able to offer a number of bursaries of up to £500.
If you intend to apply for a bursary, please insert BURSARY APPLICANT at the top of your personal statement on your application.
To apply for a bursary- after receiving confirmation of your place – please follow the below steps:
Send your CV and letter of application (either by post or email) outlining your current school or university; your current or pending qualifications; your future plans for research or teaching; why the summer school will benefit you; any particular financial (or other) circumstances which you would like to draw our attention to.
Please give the name, address, and email address of one academic referee and ask him/her to send a reference directly to fiona.haarer@kcl.ac.uk.
Syllabus
For information on the syllabus, please see the following pages:
The Ghent University Departments of Linguistics, Literary Studies, and History are hiring 2 doctoral researchers for the GOA-project
“Interconnected texts. A graph-based computational approach to Byzantine paratexts as nodes between textual transmission and cultural and linguistic developments”
Description of the research project
The research team of the GOA (Concerted Research Action) project “Interconnected texts” at Ghent University is inviting applications for two PhD fellowships. The project is based upon the corpus of Byzantine book epigrams available at https://www.dbbe.ugent.be/. It aims to investigate book epigrams as texts at the threshold between the material and the textual, with a focus on their formulaic nature, and to explore the possibilities of innovative technologies to pursue multifaceted humanities research. The project brings together linguistic, literary, historical and computational experts.
Description of the research positions
PhD Fellowship 1: Linguistics
The first PhD candidate will be embedded within the work package ‘Linguistics’, the main aim of which is to better understand formulaic phraseology in the DBBE corpus. More specifically, the PhD candidate will study the different types of formulaic patterns that occur in the corpus, create a typology of the deviations of standard patterns that can be found, and situate the use of formulae in its broader literary and socio-cultural context, making a comparison with other Byzantine and/or Ancient Greek corpora. In order to answer these research questions, the PhD candidate will apply insights from linguistic disciplines such as historical sociolinguistics and cognitive linguistics – under the guidance of the main supervisor, Klaas Bentein – and work closely together with other PhD students and team members who are applying digital methods to the corpus and its metadata (natural language processing, graph-based data exploitation and analysis). The research is expected to lead to a PhD thesis, either in the form of a monograph or a collection of single- or co-authored articles and chapters. Next to the PhD thesis, the candidate will be expected to engage in a limited amount of teaching and dissemination activities that are connected to the research.
PhD Fellowship 2: Manuscript culture
This PhD candidate will be engaged in the Work Package ‘Manuscript Culture’. This WP will investigate the multiple connections that book epigrams establish between the material production of texts and their intellectual, spiritual and/or social significance in Byzantine society. Research questions involve various reading strategies that book epigrams propose for specific texts, as well as discourses of community building present in these epigrams. The research is situated at the intersection of Byzantine Studies, Palaeography and Manuscript Studies, and Digital Humanities.
The PhD student will perform research in preparation of a doctoral dissertation on a specific innovative theme within this general framework. The dissertation will be supervised by Floris Bernard (Medieval Greek literature) and Els De Paermentier (Medieval history and manuscript studies). The candidate will make extensive use of the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams, working closely together with the other members of the research team. The student will regularly exchange intermediary results and help evaluate the computational tools developed within the project. The candidate will disseminate the research results in (partly co-authored) publications, implement the research in (limited) teaching duties, and create public awareness of the Greek manuscript heritage.
The Man From MENSA 