Second International Workshop
Thursday 4 June 2026, 8.45 am - 5.45pm, Balliol College and Online
Exhibition and workshop on Greek and Armenian Manuscripts from the Bodleian Libraries
Friday 5 June 2026, 9am - 11am, Horton Room, Weston Library
All welcome
Free attendance for Oxford students and staff in presence. For online attendance write to ugo.mondini@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk
Convenors: Ugo Mondini, Daniel Gallaher
The concluding workshop of the TORCH Network Poetry in the Medieval World will be hold in collaboration with the BII Project Transmitting and Preserving Languages. The workshop explores how and why languages were taught, learned, and sustained across the diverse and shifting socio-cultural landscapes of the late medieval and early modern Mediterranean. Integrating history with historical sociolinguistics and adopting a comparative and cross-disciplinary perspective, the workshop aims to identify shared trends, comparable elements, and distinctive features in language learning and transmission. This approach offers a renewed perspective on the interconnected Mediterranean world — a region where multilingualism, mobility, and intercultural exchange were and are central to daily life. The impact of these dynamics on language teaching, preservation, and use has often been underestimated.
The event will include dedicated time for discussion and reflection, allowing participants to engage in a broader conversation about language and cultural transmission. At its core, the workshop presents the medieval and early modern Mediterranean as a space of teaching, learning, and multilingual exchange. This year, we will focus on Greek and Armenian.
On 4 June 2026, a one-day workshop will tackle our questions from the perspective of history, languistics, and literary studies.
Speakers: Marina Bazzani (University of Oxford); Valentina Calzolari (University of Geneva); Benedetta Contin (Austrian Academy of Sciences); Andrea Cuomo (Ghent University); Karen Hamada (University of Tokyo); Anthony Kaldellis (University of Chicago); Markéta Kulhánková (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic)
On 5 June 2026, there will be an exhibition of Greek and Armenian manuscripts with an introduction by Dr Nina Sietis and Prof. Dr David Zakarian. This event is exclusively for Oxford staff and registration is needed, as space is limited.
The complete programme can be downloaded here.
The workshop is part of the activities of the TORCH Network Poetry in the Medieval World. This event is sponsored by the Balliol Interdisciplinary Institute, MGSA, NAASR, OCBR, and TORCH.
For any further information, please contact Ugo Mondini at ugo.mondini@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk.
Poetry in the Medieval World Network, TORCH Networks
