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Dr. B. (Berenice) Verhelst

Faculty of Humanities
Capaciteitsgroep Griekse en Latijnse talen en culturen
Photographer: Sander Nieuwenhuys

Visiting address
  • Turfdraagsterpad 9
  • Room number: 2.01
Postal address
  • Postbus 94203
    1090 GE Amsterdam
  • profiel

    Berenice Verhelst is assistant professor of Ancient Greek at the University of Amsterdam. She was trained (MA 2009, PhD 2014) at the University of Ghent, where she was also active from 2015 to 2021 as a postdoctoral research fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO Vlaanderen).

    Her research focusses on Greek and Latin epic. She particularly specialises in Late Antiquity and more specifically the Greek epics of Nonnus of Panopolis (5th c. AD) and the epyllia and ecphrastic poems of the so-called Nonnian poets. She works with the methods and terminology of narratology, genre studies and ancient rhetoric. As one of the coördinators of the DICES project (https://www.dices.uni-rostock.de/) she is particularly interested in combining narratology and digital methods and quantifying the striking differences regarding style and structure of Late Antique (secular and Christian) versus Archaic and Classical epic poetry.

    The results of her doctoral research project on direct speech in the Dionysiaca  appeared in 2017 with Brill (+ digital appendix). She is editor of Nonnus in Context IV. Poetry at the Crossroads (Peeters 2022) and Greek and Roman Poetry of Late Antiquity. Form, tradition and context (co-editor Tine Scheijnen, CUP 2022). Other personal interests are translation theory and practice and the history of translating the Classics.

  • Publications

    2022

    • Forstall, C. W., Finkmann, S., & Verhelst, B. (2022). Towards a linked open data resource for direct speech acts in Greek and Latin epic. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 37(4), 972–981. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqac006 [details]
    • Verhelst, B. (2022). A 'Revival' of the 'Epyllion' as a 'Genre'? Genre Awareness in Short Epic Narrative from Late Antiquity. In B. Verhelst, & T. Scheijnen (Eds.), Greek and Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity: Form, Tradition, and Context (pp. 132-150). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009031769.010 [details]
    • Verhelst, B. (2022). From Myth to Image to Description: Emotions in the Ekphrasis Eikonos of Procopius of Gaza. In M. de Bakker, B. van den Berg, & J. Klooster (Eds.), Emotions and Narrative in Ancient Literature and Beyond: Studies in Honour of Irene de Jong (pp. 697-711). (Mnemosyne. Supplements; Vol. 451). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004506053_046 [details]
    • Verhelst, B. (2022). Nonnus in the Low Countries. Book Epigrams and Occasional Poetry of and for Franciscus Nansius. In B. Verhelst (Ed.), Nonnus of Panopolis in Context IV: Poetry at the Crossroads (pp. 421-430). (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta; Vol. 314), (Byzantion. Bibliothèque; Vol. 29). Peeters. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.6988022.28 [details]
    • Verhelst, B. (2022). Nonnus. In M. de Bakker, & I. J. F. de Jong (Eds.), Speech in Ancient Greek Literature (pp. 172-194). (Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative; Vol. 5), (Mnemosyne. Supplements; Vol. 448). Brill. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004498815_010 [details]
    • Verhelst, B. (Ed.) (2022). Nonnus of Panopolis in Context IV: Poetry at the Crossroads. (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta; Vol. 314), (Byzantion. Bibliothèque ; Vol. 29). Peeters. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.6988022 [details]
    • Verhelst, B., & Scheijnen, T. (Eds.) (2022). Greek and Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity: Form Tradition, and Context. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009031769 [details]

    2020

    • Verhelst, B. (2020). 'Breaking the Fourth Wall' : on literariness and metalepsis in Nonnus' Dionysiaca. In Nonnus of Panopolis in context III : old questions and new perspectives (pp. 45-66). Brill.
    • Verhelst, B. (2020). Nonnus, of Panopolis, Greek epic poet, mid-5th c. CE. In XFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CLASSICS https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.4453
    • Verhelst, B., & Praet, S. (2020). Teaching translation theory and practice. Journal of Classics Teaching, 21(42). https://doi.org/10.1017/s2058631020000392

    2019

    • Verhelst, B. (2019). Greek biblical epic: Nonnus’ Paraphrase and Eudocia’s Homerocentones. In C. Reitz, & S. Finkmann (Eds.), Structures of epic poetry, volume 3 : Continuity (pp. 53-77). De Gruyter.
    • Verhelst, B., & Demoen, K. (2019). The tradition of epic poetry in Byzantine literature. In C. Reitz, & S. Finkmann (Eds.), Structures of epic poetry, volume 3 : Continuity (pp. 175-210). De Gruyter.

    2017

    • Verhelst, B. (2017). Direct speech in Nonnus' Dionysiaca: Narrative and rhetorical functions of the characters' 'varied' and 'many-faceted' words. (Mnemosyne Supplements). Brill.

    2024

    Prize / grant

    • Verhelst, B. (2023). Connection Grant.
    • Verhelst, B. (2021). Insight Development Grant.

    Talk / presentation

    • Verhelst, B. (keynote speaker) & Forstall, C. (keynote speaker) (18-5-2023). Listen to mummy! A diachronic analysis of epic mother speech and persuasion, Nonnus of Panopolis in Context V, Madrid.
    • Verhelst, B. (speaker) (15-9-2022). Who's speaking? A data analysis of the Homeric voices in the Homerocentones (first recension), Epic Heroism in Late Antiquity, Lisbon.
    • Verhelst, B. (speaker) (10-6-2022). Shrunken Epic. The poetics of Epyllion, Oikos-dagen, Ede.
    • Verhelst, B. (speaker) (29-10-2021). Turn-taking in epic assembly scenes from Homer to Nonnus. A data driven exploratory survey., International Conference on Conversation Analysis & Classics, Madrid.

    Others

    • Verhelst, B. (organiser) & Forstall, C. (organiser) (31-5-2023). Digital Approaches to Epic Speech, Sackville (organising a conference, workshop, ...).
    • Verhelst, B. (organiser), Finkmann, S. (organiser) & Forstall, C. (organiser) (30-6-2022 - 2-7-2022). Digital Approaches to Direct Speech Representation in Greek and Latin Epic, Rostock (organising a conference, workshop, ...).
    This list of publications is extracted from the UvA-Current Research Information System. Questions? Ask the library or the Pure staff of your faculty / institute. Log in to Pure to edit your publications. Log in to Personal Page Publication Selection tool to manage the visibility of your publications on this list.
  • Ancillary activities
    No ancillary activities