The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies was pleased to present this year's Hellenisms Past and Present, Local and Global Postdoctoral Fellow, Sergio Basso, as the inaugural speaker of our 2021 Spring Seminar Series on Friday, January 15th. Abstract Under the name of Clementine literature, we can read today a 4th-century romance, the adventurous journey that the young, boisterous Roman Clement makes to Palestine in search of spiritual enlightenment. Over the course of his presentation, Sergio Basso, this year’s Hellenisms Past and Present, Local and Global Postdoctoral Fellow, will try to persuade you to read it. Basso will argue that sometimes we put too much secondary literature between us and the ancient texts. When it comes to the Clementine Romance, he recommends picking up the book and immersing yourself in its mind-blowing odyssey, whose plot boasts twists worthy of a John le Carré novel. After introducing the book’s main events, he will present the influence of the ancient, rhetoric-centered school programs on the structure of the novel; the Syriac contribution to the imagery of the author; and some underrated comical aspects of the story. It will be an intrepid journey into the writer’s cabinet and his audience, in the Greek-speaking Near East of the 4th century. Speaker bio Sergio Basso is this year’s 2020/2021 Hellenisms Past and Present, Local and Global Postdoctoral Fellow at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University. Basso has degrees from Venice University, Oriental Languages Department (MA, 1999); the University of Milan, in Classics (MA, 2011); and the Università Roma 3 (PhD, 2018); and lived in China pursuing his academic studies in Oriental Art and Literature. Over the past fifteen years, he has honed his communication strategies, developing crossmedia platforms for the web, broadcasting radio programs and shooting documentaries. He is a member of the Italian Association of Byzantine Studies; the International Association of Manichaean Studies; the European Academy of Religion; the Multiculturalism, Race & Ethnicity in Classics Consortium (MRECC); and the Centro di Ricerca sulle Minoranze (CERM) Università degli Studi dell’Insubria. During his time at the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies, Basso will finalize his book manuscript on the transmission of the “Barlaam and Ioasaph'' saga. SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies: https://www.sfu.ca/hellenic-studies.html References Kennedy, George A. 2003. Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times. 3rd ed. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Hermogenes, ed. Malcolm Heath. 1995. On Issues: Strategies of Argument in Later Greek Rhetoric, Oxford : New York: Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press. Patillon Michel and Giancarlo Bolognesi. 1997. Aelius Théon. Progymnasmata. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Samosata: cf. Lucianus, Quomodo historia conscribenda sit 34 Peter’s displacements: Acts 2:14-41 to Acts 15:1-21, Gal. 2:11-14, 1 Cor. 1:12, 1 Pet. 1:1; 2 Pet. 1:14-15 Hort, Fenton John Anthony. 1901. Notes Introductory to the Study of the Clementine Recognitions: A Course of Lectures. London: Macmillan. Waitz, Johannes. 1904. Die Pseudoklementinen, Homilien Und Rekognitionen. Eine Quellenkritische Untersuchung. Texte Und Untersuchungen Zur Geschichte Der Altchristlichen Literatur, Band 25. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs. von Harnack, Adolf. 1929. Einführung in Die Alte Kirchengeschichte. Das Schreiben Der Römischen Kirche an Die Korinthische Aus Der Zeit Domitians (1. Clemensbrief). Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs. Rehm, Bernard. 1939. ‘Zur Entstehung Der Pseudoclementinischen Schriften’. Zeitschrift Für Die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft. Bd 37: 77–184, praesertim 155 Strecker, Georg. 2003. ‘The Pseudo-Clementines’. In New Testament Apocrypha, edited by Wilhelm Schneemelcher and R. McL Wilson, 2. Writings Relating to the Apostles Apocalypses and Related Subjects:483–93. Cambridge, England]; Louisville, Ky.: J. Clarke & Co. ; Westminster/John Knox Press.

• published: 20 Jan 2021
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