Synopsis

This Research Focus Area was established in 2015 by combining the fields of Ancient Languages and Cultures that was previously spread over the Potchefstroom and Vaal Triangle Campuses. In the process researchers investigating the fields of Latin, Greek and Semitic Languages (including Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Akkadian and others) joined forces.

Opportunity: Postdoctoral Fellowship - Research Focus Area, Ancient Texts: Text, Context and Reception

Dear students,

A Postdoctoral fellowship is available at The Research Focus Area: Ancient Texts, Context and Reception within the Faculty of Theology of the North-west University. The successful postdoctoral fellow will be allocated an experienced Mentor from the Focus area.
The Research Focus Area strives to contribute to Research and Innovation by producing cutting edge research outputs to the Research field of ancient texts. To achieve this, the FA provides opportunities to suitable candidates as elucidated below.

Applications close on 31 March 2024.
For more information, please click here.

News

Conference: 

The School of Ancient Languages and Text Studies of the North-West University of Potchefstroom in South Africa would like to invite you at the international and interdisciplinary conference.
Keynote speaker: Prof. Dr. Anke Walter (Zurich)
4-6/7 March 2026
North-West University
Potchefstroom
South Africa

For as long as it has existed, epic has been considered as the archetypal literary genre. Grammarians in antiquity placed it at the top of a hierarchy of genres. So, too, have questions of continuity and change within the epic tradition been ever-present in both Classical scholarship and literary scholarship more broadly. Here scholars have largely sought to understand how the conventions of epic are adapted and modified for various times, places, and forms falling under the rubric of “epic”. But what of epic’s influence outside of its own genre?
We are inviting proposals on the conference theme which aims at describing, analysing, and understanding the use of structures from the genre of classical epic in literature that is not epic. We welcome papers on literatures other than Latin and Greek, but the connection to Classical structures should be the main focus. 

For further information, please contact:

Lynton Boshoff:  Lynton.Boshoff@nwu.ac.za

Johan Steenkamp:  Johan.Steenkamp@nwu.ac.za