Byzantine Crime Novels in the Twenty-first Century: From History to Fiction

A lecture by

Panagiotis Agapitos
Gutenberg Distinguished Research Fellow
University of Mainz

Saturday, November 16, 2024
4:00 p.m.
314 Royce Hall, UCLA Campus
Reception to follow

RSVP link: https://forms.gle/AMserxQLbWa2exNS9
Event is free but RSVPs are requested.

Conversation following the lecture with Sharon Gerstel, Director, UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture.

The UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture invites you to a lecture that tackles the question of “authenticity” when writing crime novels set in the remote past. Agapitos’ three novels (published between 2003 and 2009 in Greece), that are set in the first half of ninth-century Byzantium during the rule of the last iconoclast emperor, Theophilos (r. 829–842), form the basis of a lively discussion about the challenges of producing a satisfactory narrative. The fairly clear generic conventions of a traditional British-style mystery are not applicable to a medieval culture such as Byzantium, starting with the basic issue of the absence of detection and the relevant detective. Contemporary fans of crime fiction have broad expectations about what a detective novel should be, but they also want a feeling of “real” history in the narrative. In his novels, the speaker tackles this problem by employing various techniques derived from Byzantine rhetoric and narrative, while, at the same time using archaeological, historical and textual studies to offer a medieval yet contemporary crime story that feels medieval but is, in fact, postmodern.

Panagiotis Agapitos is the Gutenberg Distinguished Research Fellow in Byzantine Literature at the University of Mainz. Previously, he taught for 25 years at the University of Cyprus as Professor of Byzantine Literature and Culture in the Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. He studied at the University of Munich and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1990. He has taught as a visiting professor at the Free University of Berlin, the High School of Social Sciences in Paris, Stanford University, and the Sapienza University of Rome. His research interests focus on Byzantine literature, the history of manuscripts and education in Byzantium, the critical edition of Medieval Greek texts, narratology, theory and practice of rhetoric, genre studies and cultural history. He has published over 90 papers on these topics, while his most recent book is a translation into English of the Tale of Livistros and Rodamne, a Byzantine romance of the thirteenth century (Liverpool University Press, 2021). He is currently writing a narrative history of Byzantine literature (AD 300–1500) under contract with Cambridge University Press. In his free time, he writes “mystery stories” set in ninth-century Byzantium.

This event is held under the auspices of the Consulate General of Greece in Los Angeles and made possible thanks to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

Gefyra (Bridge) is a collaborative program established by the UCLA SNF Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture and the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University with support from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF). Gefyra’s mission is to connect students, faculty, and communities along the West Coast of North America with Greek scholars, artists, and other creators, so that they can together explore expansive and imaginative approaches to Greek culture and knowledge production. The program additionally supports academic conferences and cultural projects that bridge the West Coast and Greece.

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For inquiries, please contact hellenic@humnet.ucla.edu

Parking information to be provided.