IMC 2008: Sessions

Session 106: Parrhesia and the Rhetoric of Free Speech, I: Tradition and Reinvention

Monday 7 July 2008, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:	Parrhesiasts Anonymous
Organisers:	Mary Garrison, Department of History, University of York Irene van Renswoude, Research Institute for History & Culture, Universiteit Utrecht
Moderator/Chair:	Irene van Renswoude, Research Institute for History & Culture, Universiteit Utrecht
Paper 106-a	'Da servis tuis cum cum omni fiducia loqui verbum tuum': Parrhesia in Early Latin Christianity (Language: English) Augustine Casiday, Department of Theology & Religious Studies, University of Wales Trinity St David Index terms: Biblical Studies, Language and Literature - Latin, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Rhetoric
Paper 106-b	A Pagan Author in a Christian Closet: Suspicious Learning in the Carolingian Period (Language: English) Mariken Teeuwen, Huygens Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Learning (The Classical Inheritance)
Paper 106-c	'Flaccus' Albinus, Parrhesiast? (Language: English) Mary Garrison, Department of History, University of York Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Rhetoric
Abstract	Parrhesia -translated as 'free speech' or 'frankness in speaking the truth'- was an important notion in ancient thought. It held a place in political discourse, in the language of friendship, and in the field of moral philosophy. Both the idea and the practice of free speech had a long but eluse afterlife in the Middle Ages. In this first session in our parrhesia strand, the papers will introduce the use of the term and the idea in the Latin Vulgate (Augustine Casiday), in early medieval glosses and commentaries (Mariken Teeuwen) and in the practice of one influential medieval figure, Alcuin (Mary Garison).