Date/Time
Date(s) - 23 Mar 2017 until 24 Mar 2017
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Location
Hurford Center for the Arts and Humanities
Category(ies) No Categories
Songs for the Dead:
Cross-Cultural Perspectives
on Lament and Elegy
March 23 & 24, 2017
Haverford College
Organized by Kristen Mills
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow
Visiting Assistant Professor of
English, Haverford College
“Songs for the Dead: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Lament and Elegy” brings together scholars working on lament and elegy in several cultural traditions. The comparison and juxtaposition of ancient, medieval, and modern traditions of lament and elegy is intended to foster dialogue among and across disciplines.
Verbal arts have long played an important role in mediating experiences of grief and loss. Although the practice has largely died out in the modern West, there is a long tradition of ritually mourning through quasi-improvised songs of lament, performed during the funeral rites or at the graveside. Alongside this (primarily) oral tradition we find elaborate, highly-wrought elegiac compositions, which themselves may be modeled on or borrow from the lamenter’s art. Among the topics that we will consider are the role of emotion in lament, the relationship between lament and gender, the intersection of orality, performance, and literacy, the purpose and function of mourning rituals, and the social role of the lamenter.
Free and open to the public. Full schedule at hav.to/songsforthedead.
With: Casey Dué (University of Houston), Gail Holst-Warhaft (Cornell University), Alexandra Bergholm (University of Helsinki), Joseph Harris (Harvard University), Eila Stepanova (University of Helsinki), Pirkko Fihlman (President of the Finnish Lament Society), and Virve Kallio (Finnish Lament Society).
Sponsored by the Hurford Center for the Arts and Humanities, the Tuttle Creative Residencies Program, and the Distinguished Visitors Program of Haverford College.