Orphic Relations: An International Workshop
About the Workshop
Key Information
- Topic: Orphic Relations: An International Workshop
- Dates: September 24–25, 2026
- Location: CHS Greece
- Organized by: the "Inventing Orpheus" research group, with the support of the iMouseion project and CHS Greece
- Open to: Registered speakers
- Language: English
- Activity Administration: Ioanna Papadopoulou
- Contact Email for CHS Greece: programs-eventsgreece@chs.harvard.edu
Overview
The Center for Hellenic Studies in Greece hosts "Orphic Relations: An International Workshop," organized by the "Inventing Orpheus" research group, on September 24 and 25, 2026, in Nafplio.
The participants will examine how Orphic texts and practices emerge from a space of contact defined by the relations they create with other cultural dimensions, such as the poetic tradition, forms of knowledge, and lived experience. Thus, the workshop aims to shift the focus from questioning what "Orphism" is to examining how Orphic texts and practices interact, communicate, and establish relationships with other cultural dimensions in such a way that the mythical persona of Orpheus becomes a meaningful and effective signifier for the meaning-making and social positioning of cultural agents. Eleven papers range from the Derveni Papyrus and the Gold tablets to Plato and the newly published Sinai hexameters. The speakers will also reflect on the methodology behind the research project's online database of Orphic texts, developed by the "Inventing Orpheus" Team with the support of the iMouseion project.
The program is financed under the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund, STARTING_24 Programme, project no. 151020 of the Ministry of Culture and Innovation of Hungary.
Workshop Schedule
24 September (Thursday)
- 16:30–16:45
Opening remarks - 16:45–17:30
Attila Egyed (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)
Rapture and Divine Kinship. Part 1: Kinship Relations in the Sinai Palimpsest - 17:30–17:45
Coffee break - 17:45–18:30
Gábor Betegh (University of Cambridge)
Rapture and Divine Kinship. Part 2: The Syngeneia of the Soul and the Forms - 18:30–19:15
Giorgia Lugani (University of Cambridge)
Said in Secret: Plato and the Grammar of Orphic Transmission
25 September (Friday)
- 10:00–10:45
Chiara Ferella (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)
The Orphic Zeus Mounos and the Philosophical Afterlife of a Cosmogonic Motif - 10:45–11:30
Valeria Piano (Università degli Studi di Firenze)
The Concept of Peitho in the Derveni Papyrus and Other Philosophical and Religious Contexts - 11:30–11:45
Coffee break - 11:45–12:30
Giovan Battista D’Alessio (Sapienza Università di Roma)
The Fragments of the Hymnus in Bacchum-Solem? (539–544 Bernabé) in Macrobius: A Diachronic Perspective - 12:30–13:15
Giulia Valentino (Scuola Superiore Meridionale)
Between Cosmology and Eschatology: The Soul in the Orphic Rhapsodies - 13:15–14:30
Lunch break - 14:30–15:15
Marco Antonio Santamaría Álvarez (Universidad Complutense Madrid)
What Makes a Text Orphic? The Case of the Gold Tablets - 15:15–16:00
Judit Beszkid (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)
The Liminality of the Guardians of the Orphic Gold Tablets - 16:00–16:15
Coffee break - 16:15–17:00
Fanni Ruppert (University of Pécs)
Type-scenes beyond Homer: From Telemachus and Athena to the “Orphic” Gold Tablets - 17:00–17:45
Leonóra Rácz (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)
Trisolbios, Persephone and the Bacchic One himself: Actors and Voices in the Pelinna Gold Tablets - 17:45–18:00
Coffee break - 18:00–18:30
Roundtable discussion
