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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.

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30th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA 2024) – CALL FOR PAPERS FOR SESSION #559

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR SESSION #559

THEME 6: THE MEDITERRANENAN FROM WITHIN

THE MEDITERRANEAN(S) IN TRANSITION: GLOBAL PERMANENCE(S), MATERIAL CULTURE(S),  AND RESILIENCE BETWEEN 5THAND 10TH CENTURY AD

The peoples and cultures of the Mediterranean are often compared on the basis of their geographical origin, whether Eastern or Western. Especially for the period between the 5th and 10th centuries, this comparison is mainly based on political distinctions and often ignores material aspects. But are identities around the mare nostrum really based on political boundaries, or should we seek regional specificities using different interpretative media? In particular, the distinction between the Western and Eastern Mediterranean appears to be particularly marked in the scholarly debate and attempts to bring together evidence from these “two worlds” are rare and not systematic.

The questions that arise then are: can we still speak of a single Mediterranean during Late Antiquity and Early Medieval times? Are East and West following completely different trajectories? Is it possible to compare their respective historical processes and material cultures? Or can some common features be identified, despite regional particularisms? Is trade global or does it mutate according to political factors affecting local identities? To this sense, different forms of resilience and adaptation and the potential development of one or more transitional cultures are fundamental interpretative keys.

In this Call for Papers, we invite scholars and archaeologists to bridge the scholarly division between East and West and present research focusing on material evidence from the 5th until the 10th century AD from all around the Mediterranean.

Organised by:

Nicolò PINI (Université Libre de Bruxelles, CReA-Patrimoine, FNRS), Alessandro CARABIA (University of Birmingham), Julie MARCHAND (Royal Museums of Art and History, CRaA-Patrimoine, Université Libre de Bruxelles)

Papers must be submitted by February 8th: https://submissions.e-a-a.org/eaa2024/

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PROSOPON Workshop – ‘Entangled Prosopographies: Connecting the “Prosopographies of the Later Roman and Byzantine Worlds” across the Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond’

Prosopography of the Later Roman and Byzantine Worlds

The ‘Prosopography of the Later Roman and Byzantine Worlds’ (PLRBW) project unites two Academy projects under one umbrella: the recently revived Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE) and the Prosopography of the Byzantine World (PBW), which arose from the former. PLRE was originally published in three seminal print volumes between 1971 and 1992 (with a fourth volume including addenda and corrigenda explicitly envisaged but never realised) and covers the governing class of the Roman Empire from 260 to 641. The Connecting Late Antiquities project is now updating it and making it more accessible, beginning with digitising PLRE and making it freely available on the Cambridge University Press website. From its inception, PBW has been a pioneering project in the Digital Humanities and is published online (currently in the 2016 version), with the technical responsibility for the site being undertaken by King’s Digital Lab (KCL). The project aims to record every individual mentioned in Byzantine sources during the period from 1025 to 1204, and every individual mentioned in non-Byzantine sources during the same period who is ‘relevant’ (on a generous interpretation) to Byzantine affairs; currently, coverage is near complete into the 1180s

PROSOPON-International Research Network

The PROSOPON-International Research Network is a collaborative network of prosopographical projects with a focus on the Eastern Mediterranean, 300–1600. Based at the Austrian Academy of Scienes, PROSOPON brings together prosopography-related projects, connects them to other initiatives with a similar scientific scope, and promotes the dialogue between prosopographical projects and the broader scientific community with a variety of communication opportunities and platforms for the exchange of ideas and knowledge.

The workshop will be held in hybrid format.

With any queries please contact the local member of the organising team and chair of the PLRBW project, Professor Niels Gaul.