Afdeling Grieks UGent

Our employee of the Month is Luca Licitra, who joined our section in September 2025. Nicolò talked to him about his Ghentian experience, his life in Switzerland, and his PhD Project!

👉 Read the interview here:
https://www.grieks.ugent.be/medewerker-van-de-maand-juni-2026-luca-licitra/

New job opportunity at UGent: 4-year, full-time PhD scholarship (Bursaal), within the framework of an FWO-funded project led by Andrea Cuomo, Kristoffel Demoen, and Andreas Rhoby.

🚀 Join VirMa! PhD Opportunity at Ghent University 🔗https://www.mela.ugent.be/job-openings/
Are you passionate about Byzantine hymnography, Greek linguistics, and Byzantine Studies? VirMa (The Representation of the Virgin Mary in the Theotokaria) is hiring a 4-year PhD researcher to explore Middle Byzantine Theotokaria.

What you’ll do:
✅ Analyze Medieval Greek hymns
✅ Work on rhetoric, linguistics, performance, and reception
✅ Present at international conferences
✅ Research stays in Vienna (joint PhD possible!)

We offer:
🌍 International team (Ghent + Vienna)
💻 Further training & mobility
📚 Funding for travel & Open Access publications

Ideal candidate:
🎓 MA in Classics / Byzantine Studies / Greek Linguistics
💡 Strong Greek + English skills

📅 Apply by August 1, 2026
🔗 Application Procedure VirMa
📩 Contact: Prof. Andrea Cuomo (UGent) at: [email protected].

www.mela.ugent.be

🌧️✨ Last week, despite the rain, our Department of Greek enjoyed a starry walk through Ghent, guided by our colleague Divna Manolova.

Starting with a fascinating visit to the Armand Pien Observatory, Divna led us through the city, revealing buildings and hidden details connected to Ghent’s astronomical past. Along the way, she pointed out subtle markers of this history that often go unnoticed.

Did you know these places? 🌙

Many thanks to the Armand Pien Observatory and Divna for this inspiring and eye-opening walk through the astronomical history of our city!

🎓📜On June 2, our department of Greek was well represented at KU Leuven for the 25th Day of Byzantine Studies organized by the Belgian Society for Byzantine Studies! Two members of the team presented their research to our colleagues from Belgian Universities.

Eleonora Lauro presented her research on Byzantine book epigrams in Italo-Greek Manuscripts and Michele Didoli shared his insights in the structure of complement clauses of perception verbs in Early Modern Greek Hagiographical Sermons. We would like to thank and congratulate them for sharing their fascinating research 👏.

The staff member of this month is Maria Navarro López, who joined our section in April 2026, as a visiting PhD student from the University of Barcelona.

👉 Read the interview here: https://www.grieks.ugent.be/medewerker-van-de-maand-mei-2026-maria-navarro-lopez/

On June 4, at the University of Oxford, Ugo Mondini and Dan Gallaher hosted the second workshop on "Transmitting and Preserving Languages in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean".

One of the invited speakers was Andrea Massimo Cuomo from Ghent University, alongside Marina Bazzani (University of Oxford), Valentina Calzolari (University of Geneva), Benedetta Contin (Austrian Academy of Sciences), Karen Hamada (University of Tokyo), Anthony Kaldellis (University of Chicago) and Markéta Kulhánková (Czech Academy of Sciences)

https://www.balliol.ox.ac.uk/events/2026/june/04/transmitting-and-preserving-languages-medieval-and-early-modern-mediterranean

Onze collega Floris Bernard, prof. in de Griekse letterkunde, schreef een boek over verboden literatuur van de oudheid tot nu, met als prikkelende titel: 𝐿𝑒𝑒𝑠 𝑑𝑖𝑡 𝑏𝑜𝑒𝑘 𝑛𝑖𝑒𝑡!🤓 Proficiat!

Morgen (3 juni) stelt collega Floris Bernard zijn nieuwste boek voor in het NTGent.

𝐿𝑒𝑒𝑠 𝑑𝑖𝑡 𝑏𝑜𝑒𝑘 𝑛𝑖𝑒𝑡! vertelt verhalen van censuur, boekverbrandingen, geheime bibliotheken… van de oudheid tot de dag van vandaag. 📖

Het boek vloeit voort uit de lezingenreeks ‘Verboden boeken’, georganiseerd in 2023 door Sara Buekens en Floris Bernard (vakgroep Letterkunde).

📚Wat maakt lezen gevaarlijk? Waarom zijn autoriteiten bang van boeken? Wil je dat weten? Lees dit boek!

👉Boekvoorstelling: om 20u in de foyer van het NTG (geen aanmelding vereist).

Last week, in collaboration with the Research School OIKOS and the Royal Library of Belgium, we organised a two-day crash course in Greek palaeography.

An inspiring and hands-on experience for all participants, who acquired practical skills for research involving literary and documentary papyri and manuscripts! 📜🎓

🏆 Vandaag organiseerden we op de Blandijn samen met het Certaminacomité de proclamatie van de Vlaamse Olympiades Latijn en Grieks 2025-26.

Voor de Griekse wedstrijden stuurden dit jaar maar liefst 44 klassen een Homerosvertaling in, en 139 leerlingen namen individueel deel aan de Platowedstrijd! Dikke proficiat aan alle deelnemers, en in het bijzonder aan de laureaten, de eervolle vermeldingen en hun begeleidende leraren! 👏

Our staff member of the month for April 2026 (published with some delay) is Davide Massimo, FWO junior postdoctoral researcher working on Hellenistic poetry inscribed on stone. We spoke with him about his interest in epigrams, his use of organization tools, and his research on desserts.

👉 Read the interview here: https://www.grieks.ugent.be/medewerker-van-de-maand-april-2026-davide-massimo/