From Ulysses to St Simeon Stylites

Ústav řeckých a latinských studií zve na přednášky prof. Davida Rickse (King’s College, London): 'From Ulysses to St Simeon Stylites: Cavafy's debt to Tennyson' a 'Cavafy and the global translation markets', které se uskuteční 29. května 2010 od 11.00 a od 17.00 (m.č. 141, Celetná 20).

David Ricks, professor of Modern Greek & Comparative Literature

Prof. David Ricks studied classics and philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford, where he was encouraged in his comparative literary interests by Colin Macleod. His doctoral thesis at the University of London was on the comparative topic which became his first book, The Shade of Homer (Cambridge 1989). Following the tenure of a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Birmingham, he has taught in the Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at King’s College London since 1989; in 1998 he was Visiting Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Hellenic Studies at Princeton University. As Head of the School of Humanities (2001-2004) he set in train the Comparative Literature Programme in 2002 and joined its core teaching staff. In addition, he serves as the founding coordinator of the UNC-King’s Strategic Alliance, a partnership with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill which embraces student exchange and faculty cooperation in many areas, not least Comparative Literature. All of his publications have some comparative aspect; among those which may be of particular interest to comparatists are: Byzantine Heroic Poetry (Bristol 1990); Digenes Akrites: new approaches to Byzantine heroic poetry (ed., with Roderick Beaton, Aldershot 1993); Byzantium and the modern Greek identity (ed., with Paul Magdalino, Aldershot 1998); and Modern Greek Writing: an anthology in English translation (London 2003). (A fuller list of publications is in PDF form below.) His current research interests include modern Greek poetry in comparative perspective, especially the work of C.P. Cavafy, and verse translation. Recent and current papers cover such topics as war poetry; Cavafy and the Greek Anthology; Dante in modern Greece; literature and Orthodoxy; and Victorian translations of Homer. Books based on doctoral theses completed under his supervision embrace the themes of literature and religion, the novel of the modern city, innovations in modern poetic form, and the relation between poetry and the visual arts.