Call for Abstracts: ‘Gregory of Nazianzus: Poet of networks’
Faculty of Classics and Trinity College, University of Cambridge
Thursday 4 – Friday 5 September 2025
In recent years, the fourth-century author Gregory of Nazianzus has been the subject of intense scholarly re-assessment, which has reconfigured our understanding of his theology, political engagement, rhetoric, and of his autobiographical and self-legitimising aims (Mc Lynn 1998, McGukin 2001, Elm 2012, Simelidis 2009, Hofer 2013, and Storin 2019 to name but a few examples). Time seems ripe to draw on these insights to re-assess Gregory’s poetry. As one of Late Antiquity’s most prolific poets, writing in a variety of genres (including epigrams, hymns, autobiographical and theological poems) and metres, Gregory offers a unique window into the relevance of Greek poetry to fourth-century cultural debates.
This workshop, generously funded by the Martin Rees Conference Fund of Trinity College, will centre Gregory’s poetry to ask how literary connectivity relates to sociocultural engagement. We are especially interested in exploring Gregory’s poems as a window on dynamics of interaction between literary intertextuality and the construction of social networks.
Confirmed participants include Gianfranco Agosti (University of Pisa), Kristoffel Demoen (University of Ghent), Emma Greensmith (University of Oxford), Simon Goldhill (University of Cambridge), Neil McLynn (University of Oxford), Christos Simelidis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), and Tim Whitmarsh (University of Cambridge).
Submission guidelines:
An extended version of this Call for Abstracts, including illustrations of the several ways in which contributors are invited to interpret the concept of ‘poetry of network’ with regard to Gregory’s literary activity, is available here.
Contributors from scholars in any career stage are welcomed, and early career scholars are particularly encouraged to apply. Submissions for abstracts are welcome on any given poem, passage, or collection of poems of Gregory of Nazianzus. To stimulate discussion around the historical networks of Gregory’s poetry, we also warmly invite comparative contributions juxtaposing Gregory with other fourth-century poets whose networks of readers and correspondents are well known.
Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to gregory-networks@outlook.com by 15 January 2025. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
