Lecturer: Klára Soukupová (Prague).
Annotation:
The genre of autobiography is often situated on borderline between fiction and non-fiction; autobiography refers to real characters and events, but at the same time it is a literary work of art, a verbal construct. The lecture concentrates on major problems of the genre of autobiography (truth, memory, subjectivity) as well as on history of autobiography (canonical texts) and it goes through development of theory of autobiography in 20th century.
The lecture is a part of the series Me and the World … Autobiography in Medieval and Early Modern Europe.
The Faculty of Humanities, Charles University cordially invites you to the lecture Memory – Medium – Myth: The Mnemonic Character of Old Norse-Icelandic Literature- The lecture will be delivered by Jürg Glauser (University of Zurich and University of Basel).
For further information contact: marie_nov@ seznam.cz.
Lecturer: Jürg Glauser (Zürich).
Annotation:
Icelandic literary culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries still bears many traces of the medieval tradition. This is also the case when it comes to representations of self-conceptions as expressed in early modern autobiographies. The present paper deals primarily with two representative examples of the genre,
1) the priest Jón Magnússon’s (1610-96) Píslarsaga (1658-59, ‘Story of Sufferings’(English translation by Michael Fell as And Though This World with Devils filled. A Story of Sufferings, 2007)
2) Sjálfsævisaga (1750ff., ‘Autobiography’) by the priest síra Þorsteinn Pétursson á Staðarbakka (1710-85) Beyond being quite remarkable representations of autobiographies in general, the two texts display a number of features that are specific for this genre in the pre-modern era, such as the creations of individual selves in relation to God and society, the importance of Christian faith, belief, religion and theology, the vital role mental and physical health plays in the narratives. In Píslarsaga, an additional element that defines the text in a very specific manner are the descriptions of the prosecution of putative sorcerers in seventeenth century Iceland.
The lecture is a part of the series Me and the World … Autobiography in Medieval and Early Modern Europe.
Lecturer: Carolyne Larrington (Oxford).
Annotation:
This lecture will talk about some of the ways in which the poetic form of ‚ævidrápur‘ (deeds of a life) functions within the fornaldarsaga genre in Old Norse. These autobiographically styled poems look back over and reflect a little on the lives of the Viking ancestors of medieval Scandinavians. Some may indeed draw on ancient traditions, others be antiquarian re-imaginings, but their focus on violence, loss, regret – and even love – allows us draw parallels with other kinds of autobiographical composition.
The lecture is a part of the series Me and the World … Autobiography in Medieval and Early Modern Europe.
The dpeartment of Philosophy and Religiou studies FF UK invites you to the lecture delivered by professor Robert Pasnau (Boulder, Colorado):
31st October 2019, 14:10-15:50 (as part of Dr. Santis and Dr. Tropia’s class)
Peter John Olivi. Cognition as direct access to things themselves
Lecturer: Jan Hon (Berkeley).
Annotation:
Henry Suso’s Vita narrates the life of a „Servant of Eternal Wisdom“ as a path from the state of sin to the state of „Gelassenheit“ (composure/serenity/“let-it-be-ness“) and unity with God. What makes this text unique even in the context of late medieval mysticism is its autobiographical impetus. Though narrated in the third person, the text uses a number of strategies to link the narrative to the historical figure of Henry Suso. That, in turn, makes the hagiographical tone of the account a notably risky endeavor: how can one authorize his own life, filled with self-induced suffering, as an imitatio Christi and, at the same time, present it as an example to be followed by others? The talk will discuss this tension between hagio-graphy and auto-bio-graphy along with the medial strategies in both the manuscript and the print transmissions employed to provide the audience with spiritual participation in the servant’s (self-)torturous way to God.
The lecture is a part of the series Me and the World … Autobiography in Medieval and Early Modern Europe.
Lecturer: Laura Elisabeth Kalas Williams (Swansea).
Annotation:
The Book of Margery Kempe (c. 1440) is widely considered to be the first known female autobiography in the English Language. Dictated to a number of scribes over her lifetime, the Book narrates Margery Kempe’s (b.1373; d.c.1440) spiritual conversion and her sometimes painful journey towards a holy life. This lecture will reveal the contents of a medicinal recipe that was added to the end of the only surviving manuscript by a late-fifteenth-century reader of the Book, and will explore the significance of such a medical-religious dialogue. The lecture will also consider the broader use of the Christus Medicus (Christ the Physician) motif, and the ways in which Kempe utilises such medieval understandings to achieve union with God.
The lecture is a part of the series Me and the World … Autobiography in Medieval and Early Modern Europe.
Lecurer: Pernille Hermann (Aarhus).
Annotation:
Leonora Christina (1621-1698), the daugther of the Danish king Christian IV, spent more than two decades in prison, accused of being the accomplice of her husband, Corfitz Ulfeldt, whom was killed for high treason. From this experience grew a most fascinating autobiography, with high narrative quality and an immensely high amount of details from everyday life in prison. The lecture will introduce to Leonora Christina’s autobiographical works, it will discuss how this highborn 17th-century women created the image of a strong and righteous heroine, and how she renewed the autobiographical genre by establishing new textual dialogues. The autobiography of Leonora Christina Ulfeldt is translated into English in Memoirs of Leonora Christina (transl. F.E. Bunnett) London 1872.
The lecture is a part of the series Me and the World … Autobiography in Medieval and Early Modern Europe.
Lecturer: Ryan Szpiech (Michigan).
Annotation:
In this lecture, I will discuss the first-person accounts of various medieval religious converts including Hermann the Jew, Abner of Burgos, and Anselm Turmeda. I will consider how the basic form of a conversion story—from Paul and Augustine to Bunyon, Rousseau, and Joyce—lends itself to narrative drama, suggesting that autobiography is not just a portrait of the self, but a story of the self’s transformation.
The lecture is a part of the series Me and the World … Autobiography in Medieval and Early Modern Europe.