LECTIO Summer School 2025

LECTIO is organizing its fourth Summer School on 3–4 September 2025 in the Old Abbey of Kortenberg, close to Leuven. Since 2022, the Summer Schools have invited early career researchers (PhD candidates and postdocs) to explore a specific theme from a variety of disciplinary perspectives based on materials from Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Early Modern Period. This year, the masterclasses will be devoted to letters and letter collections.

Epistolography and letter collections have garnered much scholarly attention in recent years, benefiting from diverse and complementary questions raised by various fields of research. Several aspects of letter-writing in the pre-modern and early modern world also connect with the Challenging Traditions program, which is central to the current research agenda of the LECTIO Institute. Postgraduate students and PhD researchers will have the opportunity to attend masterclasses on topics related to the study of letter-writing in the pre-modern and early modern world. The masterclasses are meant to be interactive and invite participation. In each session, masterclasses are accompanied by participants’ short presentations on their ongoing research.

Costs

The participation cost this year is €80 (contribution to catering that we ask of our participants). What is included in the participation:

  • all meals and coffee breaks
  • overnight stay in a single room with shared bathroom facilities
  • materials and welcome pack

Programme

You can access the PDF version of the programme here.

Day 1 : September 3, 2025

09.00 Arrival and welcome
09.30 Dealing with challenges of large corpora

Madalina Toca (Humboldt Stiftung / Universität Bamberg): Managing Letter Collections
10.45 Coffee break
11.00 Letters in non-classical languages

Philip Forness (KU Leuven): Beginning anew with Late Antique Syriac letters
12.15 Lunch
13.30 Letters as literature and political instruments

Lieve Van Hoof (UGent): Libanius’ Letters and Letter Collection: Book 5 from Network to Work of Art
14.45 ECR presentations
15.30 Coffee break
15.45 Gender dynamics in (literary) letters

Beatrijs Vanacker (KU Leuven): Relational Dynamics in Letter Writing
17.00 Editing letters with digital tools [hands-on session]

Annemieke Romein (Huygens Institute KNAW) : Scripts, Scans, and Scholarly Systems: Transkribus as a Tool for Epistolary Exploration
18.30 Free time
19.00 Dinner

 

Day 2 : September 4, 2025

08.15 Breakfast
09.15 Social dynamics and the performative nature of letters

Hans Cools (KU Leuven) : A Friendship in Letters: Erasmus and Viglius ab Aytta (1529-1536)
10.30 Coffee break
10.45 Authorship

Ide François (KU Leuven), The (In)Authenticity and (In)Completeness of an Epistolary Corpus: Cicero’s Letters to Brutus
12.00 Lunch
13.15 ECR presentations
13.45 Actions surrounding the letter: gift-giving, delivery and performance

Robert Flierman (Universiteit Utrecht): Studying Letters through Narrative and Normative Sources (post-Roman Latin West)
15.00 Coffee break
15.30 ECR presentations
16.00 Letters, databases and networks [hands-on session]

Daria Kohler (KU Leuven) and Evelien de Graaf (KU Leuven): From Database to Network
17.15 Closing of the summer school

 

Organising committee

  • Reinhart Ceulemans (KU Leuven)
  • Philip Forness (KU Leuven)
  • Daria Kohler (LECTIO)
  • Christian Laes (Universiteit Antwerpen)
  • Beatrijs Vanacker (KU Leuven)
  • Lieve van Hoof (Universiteit Gent)
  • Pietro Zaccaria (KU Leuven)
TERUG NAAR OVERZICHT

PRAKTISCHE INFO

  • DATUM
    03 september, 2025
  • LOCATIE
    icon Old Abbey of Kortenberg

    Kortenberg
  • DOELGROEP
    PhD postdoc ZAP
  • TAAL EVENEMENT
    ENGELS
SCHRIJF JE HIER IN

ONZE UNIVERSITEITEN