Monday, November 30, 2026 - 17:00

Boğaziçi University Byzantine Studies Research Center cordially invites you to a lecture by Assoc. Prof. Ekin Öyken (Istanbul University Department of Latin Language and Literature): "Vergilian Centos: Late Rome's Playful Literary Dialogue with Its Pagan Past"

The lecture will be held at Boğaziçi University, South Campus, Anderson Hall (Temel Bilimler Binası), Room 310 on November 30, 2026 at 5:00 pm.

To register, if you are not affiliated with Boğaziçi University, please contact byzantinestudies@bogazici.edu.tr

Abstract:

In late imperial Roman literature, the cento is a literary form between game and poetry, written by bringing together half-lines mostly taken from Vergil in entirely different contexts. The best-known Roman representatives of this distinctive form that reached us with only seventeen surviving Latin specimens, are Ausonius and the Christian poetess Proba, both of whom lived in the fourth century. This talk will survey the general features and principal examples of these “patchwork poems,” discussing them as a literary response to Christian Rome's strategies for engaging with its pagan past, and in particular, as a case of intralingual cultural translation.

Bio:

Ekin Öyken is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latin Language and Literature at Istanbul University, where he teaches Latin grammar, Latin poetry, and Roman religion. In 2013, he completed a one-year postdoctoral research position in the Department of Ancient Greek and Roman Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. His current research interests span ancient musical thought, Latin poetry, and classical reception. In 2022, at Istanbul University, he designed and led the POESI project on poetry and sign language, which brought together hearing and deaf participants and researchers at the intersection of art history, linguistics, translation studies, and philology. His Latin grammar for Turkish speakers, “Düşünce Gücüyle Latince,” will be published in 2027 by Vakıfbank Kültür Yayınları.