First International Congress of Studies on Popular Cultures in Greece and Rome, from II millennium BCE to modern folklore

 Although Greek and Roman lit­er­a­ture rarely focus­es explic­it­ly on pop­u­lar cul­ture, a sub­stan­tial body of evi­dence allows us to recon­struct what may be described as the folk­lore of the ancient world. From pre­cious tes­ti­monies emerge beliefs and ‘super­sti­tions’, folk­tales and proverbs, imag­i­nary beings, songs and oth­er types of musi­cal forms, folk-phar­­ma­­copoeia and med­i­c­i­nal reme­dies, apotropa­ic ges­tures and prac­tices, along with many oth­er traits

 char­ac­ter­is­tic of a pop­u­lar cul­ture of the ancients. This Greek and Roman folk­lore can often be approached (and effec­tive­ly com­pared) on the one hand with oth­er ancient Euro-Mediter­ranean tra­di­tions, and on the oth­er hand with the doc­u­men­ta­tion of mod­ern pop­u­lar cul­ture, espe­cial­ly in cer­tain cul­tur­al­ly con­ser­v­a­tive areas such as cen­tral Greece and south­ern Italy. Stud­ies on ancient Greek and Roman pop­u­lar cul­ture have wit­nessed sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ments in recent decades. New approach­es and new research have con­tributed to a renewed read­ing of Greek and Roman authors and texts. Build­ing on the expe­ri­ence of folkloricum.it (http://folkloricum.it/), the time now seems ripe for organ­is­ing an Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress of Stud­ies, aim­ing to bring togeth­er schol­ars from dif­fer­ent dis­ci­plines (includ­ing Clas­sics, folk­lore stud­ies, anthro­pol­o­gy, his­to­ry of reli­gions, and archae­ol­o­gy) and devot­ed to all aspects of pop­u­lar cul­ture in the Greek and Roman world. These will be the main fields of inter­est:

 1 – Def­i­n­i­tions and Meth­ods. What is ‘pop­u­lar’? ‘Low­er’ and ‘upper’ cul­tures; ancient and mod­ern cul­tur­al lev­els; diachrony and syn­chrony; ‘pop­u­lar’ and ‘learned’ mag­ic; com­pa­ra­tion and philol­o­gy; oral­i­ty and lit­er­a­cy.

 2 – Mate­r­i­al Cul­tures. Art; arche­ol­o­gy; his­to­ry and soci­ol­o­gy; objects; dress and clothes; amulets; games and toys; fres­coes and gems.

 3 – Lan­guages and Non-ver­bal Codes. Non-stan­­dard and ver­nac­u­lar gram­mar, mor­phol­o­gy and lex­i­con; proverbs and pop­u­lar say­ings; ges­tures; music and dances; rid­dles; dreams; curse for­mu­lae.

 4 – The sacred and the super­nat­ur­al. Cults and rites; fes­ti­vals; reli­gious prac­tices (wed­dings, mourn­ing, funer­als, child-relat­ed pro­tec­tive prac­tices); ‘super­sti­tions’ and beliefs; Evil Eyes; fig­ures of fear: mon­sters, witch­es, and oth­ers;

 5 – Nature and Tech­niques. Animal‑, plant- and stone-lore; agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices; pop­u­lar med­i­cine, reme­dies and phar­ma­co­paea; beliefs about stars and celes­tial phe­nom­e­na.

 6 – Beyond Lit­er­a­ture and Oral­i­ty. Nar­ra­tive pat­terns (types and motifs), myths and folk­tales; fables; leg­ends and belief tales; fairy­tales; sub-lit­er­ary gen­res (folk the­atre, mimes, pop­u­lar nar­ra­tive lit­er­a­ture); pop­u­lar songs (work-songs, fes­­ti­­val-songs, sea­son­al and quest-songs).

The list is not intend­ed to be exhaus­tive, and pro­pos­als address­ing relat­ed top­ics are also encour­aged.

 Any­one inter­est­ed in con­tribut­ing a paper to the con­fer­ence is invit­ed to sub­mit their title and a brief abstract in one of the con­fer­ence lan­guages (Eng­lish, Ital­ian, French, Span­ish, Ger­man; papers may be deliv­ered in the same lan­guages) of no longer than 200 words to the two organ­is­ers, Prof. Tom­ma­so Brac­ci­ni (tommaso.braccini@unisi.it) and Prof. Emanuele Lel­li (prof.emanuele.lelli@gmail.com) by 1 August 2026 (please send a Word doc­u­ment and cc both organ­is­ers).

 Schol­ars at all lev­els of juniority/seniority are equal­ly wel­come.

 We will eval­u­ate all sub­mis­sions and inform all appli­cants about accep­tance or rejec­tion by mid-August.

 Papers should be no longer than 20 min­utes. Each accept­ed paper must be accom­pa­nied by an handout/abstract in Eng­lish no longer than 3000 char­ac­ters (includ­ing spaces).

 Only in lim­it­ed cas­es it will be pos­si­ble online parte­ci­pa­tion for speak­ers.

 Con­fer­ence fee (100 €) includes wel­come din­ner on Sep­tem­ber 9th, three buf­fet lunch­es, con­fer­ence mate­r­i­al and the vol­ume of the Pro­ceed­ings.

 With the Patron­age of Fédéra­tion Inter­na­tionale des Asso­ci­a­tions d’études clas­siques

 Asso­ci­azione Ital­iana di Cul­tura Clas­si­ca, Del­egazione “Anti­co e Mod­er­no”.

 Sci­en­tif­ic Com­mit­tee: Igor Baglioni, Simone Beta, Tom­ma­so Brac­ci­ni, Ignazio E. Buttit­ta, Andrea Ercolani, Emanuele Lel­li, Sonia Macrì, Camil­lo Neri, Ric­car­do Palmis­ciano, Giu­lia Pedruc­ci, Eleono­ra Roc­coni, Sil­via Romani, Andrea Tad­dei.