New editor for Byzantine Modern Greek Studies
The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies is pleased to announce that Dr Baukje van den Berg will assume the position of editor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at the start of 2025.
Dr van den Berg is Associate Professor in the Department of Historical Studies at the Central European University and director of its Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies. She is a leading expert in Byzantine literary thought and the reception of ancient literature in Byzantine culture. Her publications include her monograph Homer the Rhetorician: Eustathios of Thessalonike on the Composition of the Iliad (OUP, 2022) and a recent co-edited volume (with Nikos Zagklas) Poetry in Byzantine Literature and Society (1081–1204) (CUP, 2024).
The Centre would also like to express our most heartfelt thanks to Professor Ingela Nilsson (University of Uppsala), who steps down from the role. Professor Nilsson has been instrumental in ensuring the continued success of the journal in the past few years and its importance to Byzantine and Modern Greek scholarship within Birmingham, and across the globe.
Transitions: A Historian’s Memoir
Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies and British School at Athens joint Autumn Lecture
Join us for the SPBS and BSA Autumn Lecture, featuring Professor Peter Sarris (Cambridge)!
Title: Writing the Reign of Justinian
Date: Tuesday, November 13th, 2024
Time: 5:00 PM (London)
In Person: Bush House Lecture Theatre 2 (4.04), King’s College London
Online: Zoom (Please register in advance below)
Professor Sarris, a leading authority on the study of Justinian’s reign, a pivotal period in Byzantine history. His latest book, JUSTINIAN: EMPEROR, SOLDIER, SAINT, has garnered critical acclaim and won prestigious awards, including the London Hellenic Prize.
This event is open to all! Whether you’re a Byzantine scholar or simply curious about this remarkable era, don’t miss this opportunity to gain insights from a leading expert.
Register now here!
Call for Papers: Radicalism and its Uses in Late Roman/Byzantine History (Session for the Leeds International Medieval Congress, 7–10 July 2025)
- The definition(s) of radicalism in different late Roman/Byzantine contexts: what was “radical” in the late Roman or Byzantine world?
- Case studies of specific late Roman/Byzantine ideas and behaviour that are usefully described as, or were perceived at the time as, radical (or counter-radical);
- Late Roman/Byzantine attitudes to radicalism (philosophical, social, political, religious, etc.);
- Radical or counter-radical traditions of thought and/or action in the late Roman/Byzantine world;
- The conceptual utility of the terms “radical” and/or “counter-radical” for understanding aspects of the late Roman/Byzantine world;
- Previous scholarly uses of (or choices not to use) the term “radical” in a late Roman/Byzantine context that might be productively rethought;
- Radical approaches to the study of late Roman/Byzantine history.
Roman Constantinople in Byzantine Perspective
The Memorial and Aesthetic Rediscovery of Constantine’s Beautiful City, from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance
Author:
Crow Week! Celebrating Professor Jim Crow
Edinburgh’s Centre for Late Antique, Islamic & Byzantine Studies (CLAIBS) is delighted to announce Crow Week!
On Monday 13 May 2024, CLAIBS is honoured to host, in hybrid format, this year’s joint lecture of the Austrian (OEBG) and British (SPBS) societies for Byzantine Studies, delivered by CLAIBS’s own Jim Crow with Galina Fingarova (University of Vienna) as respondent. The lecture is entitled ‘Peeping under the Palimpsest: reclaiming the urban topography of Byzantine Constantinople’.
Abstract: A recent publication on late antique and medieval urbanism titled ‘Cities as palimpsests?’ draws attention to the multi-layered nature of ancient cities and the nuanced perspectives which are offered for the study of evolving urbanism. But how far is this engaging metaphor relevant for understanding the city beneath our feet and as a contribution to comprehending past lifeways? By reviewing past and contemporary approaches and methodologies I aim to consider the contribution of previous observations and excavations for the topography and infrastructure of the city, with particular attention to the Byzantine remains enclosed within the circuit wall of the Topkapı Saray, the city’s first hill.
Proceedings commence at 5.30pm BST. All welcome; registration – for in person or remote participation – is open at https://edin.ac/3QiNueS
On Friday that same week (17 May 2024), CLAIBS, in collaboration with Edinburgh’s Departments of Archaeology and Classics, looks forward to hosting a half-day hybrid workshop – ‘Of Walls and Aqueducts: Celebrating Professor Jim Crow’ – to mark Professor Crow’s recent retirement from his distinguished tenure as Edinburgh’s Chair in Classical and Byzantine Archaeology. Three speakers representing the three areas of the Centre – Ine Jacobs (Oxford) for Late Antique studies, Scott Redford (SOAS) for Islamic studies, and Edinburgh’s Margaret Mullett for Byzantine studies – will deliver talks relevant to Professor Crow’s own work and in his honour. The academic part will last from 3.15–6pm BST. All welcome; for further details and registration – for in person or remote participation – see https://edin.ac/3QgRLjg
With any queries, please contact Niels Gaul (N.Gaul@ed.ac.uk).
SPBS-OEBG Joint Lecture 2024 – Hybrid Event!
Peeping under the palimpsest: reclaiming the urban topography of Byzantine Constantinople
Prof. Jim Crow (University of Edinburgh)
Respondent: Dr Galina Fingarova (Universität Wien)
Event Details:
In person
May 13th 2024 at 5:30PM
Location: Meadows Lecture Theatre, Edinburgh, EH8 9AG
The subject of this talk is the sub-surface archaeology of Constantinople. A recent publication on late antique and medieval urbanism titled ‘Cities as Palimpsests?’ draws attention to the multi-layered nature of ancient cities and the nuanced perspectives which are offered for the study of evolving urbanism. But how far is this engaging metaphor relevant for understanding the city beneath our feet and as a contribution to comprehending past lifeways? By reviewing past and contemporary approaches and methodologies I aim to consider the contribution of previous observations and excavations for the topography and infrastructure of the city, with particular attention to the Byzantine remains enclosed within the circuit wall of the Topkapi Saray, the city’s first hill.
To register please click here
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Volume 48 – Issue 1 – April 2024
The latest issue of the Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies journal, of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies of the University of Birmingham is here!
The editors of the BMGS journal have dedicated the 48th volume to Leslie Brubaker!
SEEING THROUGH BYZANTIUM: PAPERS IN HONOUR OF LESLIE BRUBAKER
You may read the published articles by clicking here.
Online Lecture: Recycled Cities: Sardis and the Fortifications of Early Byzantine Anatolia
The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the final lecture in our 2023–2024 lecture series.
Thursday, March 28, 2024 | 12:00 PM EDT | Zoom
Recycled Cities: Sardis and the Fortifications of Early Byzantine Anatolia
Jordan Pickett, University of Georgia
The largest standing architecture at the ruined city of Sardis is not its famous Temple of Artemis, the fourth largest Ionic temple of antiquity, but is instead the massive but little-published fortification that sits on its Acropolis. This paper delivers preliminary results from new study of the Byzantine fortifications on the Acropolis at Sardis, part of the larger Harvard-Cornell Exploration of Sardis ongoing since 1958. Composed entirely of thousands of architectural blocks and sculpture recycled from older Iron Age and Roman monuments of Sardis, our understanding of the Acropolis fortifications hinges on three questions considered here. How has the Acropolis, composed of extraordinarily friable loose conglomerate subject to erosion and earthquake, changed since Antiquity? When were the Acropolis fortifications constructed? Possibilities range from c. 550 during the reign of Justinian to as late as c. 850. And, how and by whom were the Acropolis fortifications constructed? Set at a remarkably steep elevation, the labor for transport and construction with reused materials was extraordinary. No minor monument of the “Dark Ages”, the fortifications on the Acropolis at Sardis stand as a remarkably well-preserved complex of defensive architecture that sheds light on the priorities and capacities of communities in Byzantine Anatolia.
Jordan Pickett is Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at the University of Georgia and co-PI, with Benjamin Anderson (Cornell University), for Acropolis investigation for the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, Turkey, under the direction of Nick Cahill (University of Wisconsin).
Advance registration required at https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/recycled_cities
Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.