Singers and Tales in the 21st Century: The Legacies of Milman Parry and Albert Lord Conference Program
Unless otherwise noted, all events will take place in the Fong Auditorium, Boylston Hall.
Friday, December 3
9:15-9:30 Registration
9:30-9:45 Opening remarks
9:45-11:15 Formula and Theme
- Egbert Bakker, “Homeric Formulas and the Intertextuality Continuum”
- Carl Lindahl, “The Porous House Sequence in Appalachian Folktales”
- Chao Gejin, “Current Trends in Chinese Folkloristics: A Perspective from the Localized Application of the Oral-Formulaic Theory”
10:30-10:45 Coffee Break
Coffee and snacks in Ticknor Lounge, Boylston Hall
11:30-12:30 Homer
- Minna Skafte Jensen, “Menelaus in the Odyssey: A Study in Patterned Narrative”
- Françoise Létoublon, “The Trojan Formulaic Theater”
12:30-2:00 Lunch
Lunch for conference speakers in Warren House
2:00-4:00 Balkan Epics
- John Miles Foley, “Oral Epic in Stolac: Collective Tradition and Individual Art”
- Mirsad Kuni?, “The Death of the Hero Mustaj Bey of the Lika in the Songs of the Milman Parry Collection”
- Ronelle Alexander, “Tracking the Epic Register in South Slavic”
- Nicola Scaldaferri / Zymer Neziri, “From the Archive to the Field: New Research on Albanian Epic Songs”
4:30-5:30 Reception and Exhibition
Amy Lowell Room, Houghton Library, Second Floor
6:00-7:00 Performance by Odhon Bayar
Ticknor Lounge, Boylston Hall
7:30 Dinner for Conference Speakers and Performers
Harvard Faculty Club
Saturday, December 4
9:00-10:30 Comparative Approaches I
- Nikolay Grintser, “Common Grief: Weeping Over Hector and Rama”
- Olga Levaniouk, “The Dreams of Barchin and Penelope”
- Holly Davidson, “The Written Text as a Metaphor for the Integrity of Oral Composition in Iranian Traditions and Beyond”
10:30-10:45 Coffee Break
Coffee and snacks in the Ticknor Lounge, Boylston Hall
10:45-11:45 Comparative Approaches II
- Anna Bonifazi / David Elmer, “Visuality in South Slavic and Homeric Epic”
- Joseph Nagy, “Snakes of the Heart in Serbian and Irish Heroic Tale”
11:45-12:00 Coffee Break
Coffee and snacks in the Department of Classics, Boylston Hall, Second Floor
12:00-1:00 Technologies
- Peter McMurray, “There Are No Oral Media? Aural and Visual Perceptions of South Slavic Epic Poetry”
- Casey Dué / Mary Ebbott, “Multitext as an Extension of the Theory and Fieldwork of Parry (and Lord)”
1:00-2:15 Lunch
Lunch for conference speakers in Warren House
2:15-3:15 Memory
- David Bouvier, “Formulaic Expressions and Memory in Homer
- Carlo Severi, “Compositions in the Mind: Iconography, Orality, and the Anthropology of Memory”
3:15-3:30 Coffee Break
Coffee and snacks in Ticknor Lounge, Boylston Hall
3:30-5:00 Music and Performance
- John Franklin, “South Slavic Heroic Melody: Towards a New Method of Analysis”
- Dwight Reynolds, “Composition in Performance Arab Style”
- Karl Reichl, “The Singing of Tales: The Role of Music in Epic Performance and in the Edited Text”
5:30-6:30 Performance by Â??k ?eref Ta?l?ova
Ticknor Lounge, Boylston Hall
8:00 Dinner for Conference Speakers and Performers
Ilex Foundation, 82 Revere Street, Boston
Sunday, December 5
9:00-10:30 Scandinavian Traditions
- Lars Lönnroth, “Old Norse Texts as Performance”
- Gísli Sigurðsson, “The Oral Background of the Eddas and Sagas”
- Tom DuBois, “Yearning for Multimedia Before Its Time”
10:30-10:45 Coffee Break
Coffee and snacks in Ticknor Lounge, Boylston Hall
10:45-12:15 Dialogic Approaches
- Anna Stavrakopoulou, “Dialogue of the Deaf: Puppeteers vs. Interviewers on Oral History and Historical Data”
- Aida Vidan, “The Ballad of a Lost Sibling: Oral Sources of Croatian Renaissance Drama”
- Lotte Tarkka, “Dialogue of Genres in Kalevala Meter Oral Poetry”
12:15-2:00 Lunch
Lunch for conference speakrs in Warren House
2:00-3:00 Epic and Society
- Susan Niditch, “Preserving Traditions of ‘Them’ and the Creation of ‘Us’: Formulaic Language, Historiography, Mythology, and Self-Definition”
- Margaret Beissinger, “Transgression, Shame, and the Upholding of Traditional Society: Incest in Balkan Oral Epic”
3:00-3:30 Closing remarks