Friday 26th July

16:00 Registration

18:15 Welcome Address

18:30 Zachary Yuzwa (University of Saskatchewan)
“A Flower Among Thorns”: Hiddenness and Holiness in the Lives of Katherine Tekakwitha

20:00 Dinner for Speakers

Saturday 27th July

9:00 Coffee and Registration

9:30 Introduction to the Conference

Session I
10:00 Benjamin Pohl (University of Bristol)
The Hidden Narrator

10:10 Stavroula Constantinou (University of Cyprus)
Authorship and Secrecy: The Hidden Agenda of a Fifth-Century Hagiographer

10:40 Kirill Dmitriev (University of St Andrews) – Secrecy as a Narrative Strategy in the Legend of Barlaam and Josaphat

11:10 Coffee

Session II
11:30 Jan-Markus Kötter (University of Düsseldorf)
Literary Absence

11:40 Lieve Van Hoof (Ghent University)
Self-Fashioning Through Secrets: The Years 363–388 in Libanius’ Letter Collection

12:10 Christa Gray (University of Reading)
Concealing the Body: Hidden Burials in Jerome’s Lives of Holy Men

12:40 Lunch for Speakers

Session III
14:00 Anne Alwis (University of Kent)
Lifting the Veil

14:10 Marlena Whiting (University of Amsterdam)
Secret Women. Female Pilgrims Disguised as Men in Early-Byzantine Hagiography

14:40 Laura Franco (Royal Holloway, London)
Between Concealment and Disguise: The Cases of the Cross-Dressing Saints Euphrosyne/Smaragdus (BHG 625) and Mary/Marinus (BHG 1163)

15:10 Coffee

Session IV
15:30 Dionysios Stathakopoulos (King’s College, London)
Secret Sanctity

15:40 Klazina Staat (Ghent University)
Late-Antique Latin Lives of Chaste Couples: Secrecy as a Strategy of Belief

16:10 Christodoulos Papavarnavas (University of Vienna)
Martyrdom and Secret Holiness: The Role Swap Between a Martyr and a Flute Player

16:40 Coffee

Session V
17:00 Leah Tether (University of Bristol)
Literary Discretion

17:10 Isabel Toral-Niehoff (Free University of Berlin)
The Gentle Art of Safeguarding Secrets. Confidentiality in Arabic Advice Literature

17:40 Lale Behzadi (University of Bamberg)
Al-Jāḥiẓ on the Difficulty of Keeping a Secret

18:30 City tour

20:00 Dinner for Speakers

Sunday 28th July

9:30 Coffee

Session VI
10:00 Jenny Oesterle (University of Heidelberg)
Secrecy and Knowledge

10:10 Georg Leube (University of Bayreuth)
Gnosis on the Via Dolorosa: The Scope of Hidden Meaning in Early and Classical Arabic-Islamic Historiographical Accounts of Ali’s March to Siffin

10:40 Enass Khansa (American University of Beirut)
The Concealed Gates of Heaven

11:10 Coffee

Session VII
11:30 Benjamin Gray (Birkbeck College, London)
Masquerading Voices

11:40 Tina Chronopoulos (Binghamton University, New York)
Ineffable Speeches in the Greek Lives of St Katherine of Alexandria

12:10 Klaus van Eickels (University of Bamberg)
Revealing Secrets: Assassinations Explained or Prevented by Letters in Crusading Historiography

12:40 Lunch for Speakers

Session VIII
14:00 Konstantin Klein (University of Bamberg)
Concealing Vision: Seen but not Heard

14:10 Julia Doroszewska (University of Warsaw)
Secrets of the Saints: Tricks and Disguises in the Saintly Apparitions of the Late-Antique Miracle Collections

14:40 James Corke-Webster (King’s College, London)
Seeing and Secrecy: Visibility and Martyrs

15:10 Break

15:20 Alexandra Vukovich (University of Oxford)
Final Conclusions

16:00 Walking tour

20:00 Dinner for Speakers