Medieval Studies Program, Division of Languages and Literature, and Classical Studies Program Present

Reading Eugenius of Toledo

At the center of our workshop is an icon of Visigothic literary culture, and one of the most prolific Latin poets of the post-Roman world: Eugenius of Toledo, bishop of the Visigothic urbs regia from 646-657 CE. Despite the acknowledged richness of Eugenius’s material—spanning epigraphic, liturgical, lyrical, and epistolary genres, and including a vast pseudepigraphic corpus—his writings remain underused by historians, and there has never been a monographic study of his work.

This conference and subsequent volume aim to invigorate conversation surrounding the poet-bishop, building off a soon-to-be-published translation of his complete works (Routledge), the first ever into English, by Graham Barrett and David Ungvary, as well as Paulo Farmhouse Alberto’s foundational Corpus Christianorum edition (2005). Taking inspiration from more recent work in late antique literary history, which has revalorized Late Latin poetry as a profoundly social discourse, we seek to develop approaches to Eugenius that are sensitive to the interplay between his sophisticated poetics and his cultural and political contexts. In this way, we hope to gain a better understanding of how Eugenius’s distinctive literary practice interacted with the evolving institutions of power, religious environments, and literary communities of Visigothic Iberia. Together, we wish to discover more about how Eugenius functioned socially as a clerical poet in this world; how he leveraged his writing practice in moves for political power; and how Eugenius’s legacy may have reshaped the cultural landscape of Latin poetry in the post-Roman West.

PROGRAM

Friday, September 8
Olin Humanities Building
Room 102

9:30-10AM
WELCOME&COFFEE

10-10:30AM
INTRODUCTION: TRANSLATING AND INTERPRETING EUGENIUS OF TOLEDO

Graham Barrett
University of Lincoln, UK

David Ungvary
Bard College

1:30-2:30PM
KEYNOTE: THE POETIC LANDSCAPES OF LATE LATIN ANTIQUITY

Joseph Pucci
Brown University

10:45AM-12:15PM
SESSION 1: SITUATING THE BISHOP: EUGENIUS’S RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL WORLD

Jamie Wood
University of Lincoln, UK
“From Zaragoza to Toledo: Eugenius in ecclesiastical and royal context”

Eleonora Dell’ Elicine
Universidad de Buenos Aires/Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento/ UCEL
“Guarding Orthodoxy: Eugenius of Toledo and the theological debate of his time”

12:15-1:30PM
BREAK & LUNCH

2:45-4:15PM
SESSION 2: FRAMING THE POET: EUGENIUS’S LITERARY WORLD

Paulo Farmhouse Alberto
University of Lisbon
“Eugenius of Toledo and grammatical teaching in the Early Middle Ages”

Cillian O’Hogan
University of Toronto
“Il miglior fabbro? Eugenius as a reader and editor of Dracontius”
 

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9
BLITHEWOOD

8:30-9AM
COFFEE & BREAKFAST

9:00AM-12:15PM
SESSION 3: READING EUGENIUS

Mark Tizzoni
Bates College
“Eugenius and Educational Culture”

Céline Urlacher-Becht
University of Haute-Alsace
 “Eugenius towards late Latin epigram”

Dennis Trout
University of Missouri
 “Eugenius’s “Epigraphic” Poetry: Contents and Context”

Annemarie Pilarski
University of Regensburg
“Curses, laments, and compunction: Handling Death through Poetry in Eugenius' Libellus carminum and in the Epitaphion Antoninae”

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For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail ungvary@bard.edu.

Location: Olin 102 (Friday) & Blithewood (Saturday)