Project Title: Folklore and Oral Traditions in the Greek Culture: From the Archaic to the Hellenistic Period

Principal Investigator (PI): Riccardo Palmisciano, University of Naples “L’Orientale”

ISMed Research Unit Manager: Andrea Ercolani

University of L’Aquila Research Unit Manager: Laura Lulli
PRIN projects – University of L’Aquila, Humanities Department

Researchers affiliated with the ISMed unit: Alessandra Piergrossi, ISPC – CNR

Project Duration: Biennial: 16.10.2023–16.10.2025

Project description

The project focuses on studying folklore, folktales, traditional storytelling, and their modes of dissemination and transmission in Greece from its origins to the Hellenistic period, taking into account the oral/aural communication system of the Greek culture. Besides examining materials from available texts, the research emphasizes a comparative anthropological approach, given the scarcity of information from available sources (both literary and archaeological). Comparison, even when not in immediate proximity, emerges as a privileged study method to formulate reasonable interpretative hypotheses derived from the observation of documented historical experiences.

The entire project is part of the broader and detailed line of research on orality, “Rethinking Orality”, jointly initiated in 2019 by ISMed – CNR, University of Naples “L’Orientale”, University of L’Aquila, and subsequently University of Siena and AMA Center – Anthropology of the Ancient World, which is ongoing.

ISMed Unit Objectives

Within the project framework, the ISMed unit has set more specific objectives:

1. Defining storytelling mechanisms and their functions based on cognitive sciences and neurolinguistics results.
2. Investigating the relationship between storytelling and traditional narrative (folktale) in Greek culture during the archaic and classical periods, focusing particularly on epic traditions.
3. Defining the extent of non-linguistic communicative code usage in “traditional tales” and verify the hypothesis of storytelling through “mental images” resulting into semantic sets comprising physical structures and objects.
4. Investigating the relationship between linguistic communication and iconographic codes to identify similarities, convergences, and interactions.

Keywords: orality, folktale, storytelling, anthropological comparison, “visual orality”

Scientific Committee:

• Stefania Cavaliere (University of Naples “L’Orientale”)

• Andrea Ercolani (Institute of Mediterranean Studies ISMed – CNR)

• Laura Lulli (University of L’Aquila)

• Giacomella Orofino (University of Naples “L’Orientale”)

• Riccardo Palmisciano (University of Naples “L’Orientale”)

• Alessandra Piergrossi (Institute of Heritage Sciences ISPC – CNR)

• Livio Sbardella (University of L’Aquila)

Events

• Conference Society, Politics and History in the Greek Theatre of the 4th Century BC: continuity or transformation? 14-16 November 2024

• Seminary Telling stories: the homeric epos and the sicilian cunto. 19 April 2024
  
  
• Seminary Folktale and storytelling: the Sicilian cunto. 18 April 2024
  
  
• Seminary Epos, singers, music. 11 April 2024
  
  
• Conference Orality and storytelling. From Homer to the traditions of Sicily: orbi, cunto, pupi. 22-23 March 2024