Tag: Byzantine Studies

Posted on

Call for communications: 56th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies at the University of Birmingham

Byzantium from below: rural and non-elite life in the Byzantine world
12th-14th April 2025
Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies
University of Birmingham
Call for communications
 
Abstracts are invited for communications at the 56th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies to be held at the University of Birmingham, UK. Communications are 10-mins long. Communications related to the themes of non-elites, peasants and rural life in the Byzantine world are particularly encouraged. Abstracts should be 250 words in length and are due by Monday 6 January 2025.
Please send abstracts to d.k.reynolds@bham.ac.uk.
Successful applicants will be notified by mid-January 2025.
Symposium abstract
The Byzantine Empire was built on the backs of the rural and urban labour force. From agricultural production and the extraction of raw materials to the physical construction of urban centres and buildings, the strength of the empire’s economy and its imperial administration rested upon complex networks of labourers, artisans and ‘local notables’, across its natural landscapes, in villages, and cities. While huge advances have been made in studying labour processes in recent years, the experiences of such populations within the Byzantine world have received comparatively little attention when compared to other fields of late Roman and western medieval studies. How the Byzantine Empire was experienced and understood by those far removed from its centres of governance and central networks of power, are crucial questions for understanding the lived experience of the mostly silent majority whose lives played out both within, and around, the empire’s fluctuating ‘borders’. Beyond exploring the contribution of rural communities and non-elites to modes of production, this symposium will also explore what can be said of the intricacies of their lives, societies, and what it meant to ‘be Byzantine’, viewed from below.
Posted on

Transitions: A Historian’s Memoir

Dear friends,
We would like to invite you to celebrate with us the launch of Transitions: A Historian’s Memoir by Prof Dame Averil Cameron, President of the SPBS.
This event is organised by the Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity.
Discussants: Revd Canon Dr Peter Groves, Prof John Haldon FBA
Date: Tuesday 12th November 2024
Time: 5pm (UK time)
Venue: Levine Auditorium, Trinity College, Oxford
Posted on

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!

Posted on

Roman Constantinople in Byzantine Perspective

The Memorial and Aesthetic Rediscovery of Constantine’s Beautiful City, from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance

Author:

Paul Magdalino
This book studies the research perspective in which the literary inhabitants of Late Antique and medieval Constantinople remembered its past and conceptualised its existence as a Greek city that was the political capital of a Christian Roman state. Initial reactions to Constantine’s foundation noted its novel Christian orientation, but the memorial mode of writing about the city that developed from the sixth century recollected the traditional civic cultural heritage that Constantinople claimed both as the New Rome, and as the continuation of ancient Byzantion. This research culture increasingly became the preserve of the imperial bureaucracy, and focused on the city’s sculptured monuments as bearers of eschatological meaning. Yet from the tenth century, writers progressively preferred to define the wonder and spectacle of Constantinople in the aesthetic mode of urban praise inherited from late antiquity, developing the notion of the city as a cosmic theatre of excellence.
Posted on

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

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Opportunity for Graduate Students & ECRs: Inscriptions in a Digital Environment: An Introduction to EpiDoc for Byzantinists

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture and the Byzantine Studies Association of North America are pleased to offer a three-part EpiDoc workshop for graduate students and early career researchers in collaboration with Martina Filosa of the University of Cologne.

Inscriptions in a Digital Environment: An Introduction to EpiDoc for Byzantinists, workshop by Martina Filosa (University of Cologne), Zoom, April 5, 12, and 26, 2024, 11:00 AM–3:00 PM EDT with a break from 12:30–1:00 PM

In this online workshop, participants will explore the use of EpiDoc, the established standard for digitally encoding ancient inscriptions, papyri, and other primary and documentary texts in TEI XML for online publication and interchange. The workshop will also introduce the participants to the EFES (EpiDoc Front-End Services) platform for viewing and publishing EpiDoc editions. The workshop will include asynchronous tutorials, real-time sessions, and guided hands-on exercises. Participants will have the opportunity to work with their own epigraphic material, broadly understood.

Registration closes Friday, March 22.

Who is eligible?

  • Graduate students and early career researchers (PhD received after April 2016) in the field of Byzantine studies.
  • All participants must be BSANA members. BSANA membership is free for graduate students and early-career contingent scholars who have earned their PhD within the last eight years and who do not hold a permanent or tenure-track appointment. If you are not already a BSANA member, please complete the BSANA Membership Form before registering for the workshop. Your membership status will be confirmed before your space in the workshop is confirmed.

For a full description of the workshop and to register your interest, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/inscriptions-in-a-digital-environment.

Contact Brandie Ratliff, Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, with any questions.

Posted on

Call for Sessions: Mary Jaharis Center Sponsored Panel, 50th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference

As part of its ongoing commitment to Byzantine studies, the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture seeks proposals for Mary Jaharis Center sponsored sessions at the 50th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference to be held in New York City, October 24–27, 2024. We invite session proposals on any topic relevant to Byzantine studies.

Session proposals must be submitted through the Mary Jaharis Center website. The deadline for submission is April 3, 2024.

If the proposed session is accepted, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse a maximum of 5 session participants (presenters and chair) up to $800 maximum for scholars based in North America and up to $1400 maximum for those coming from outside North America. Funding is through reimbursement only; advance funding cannot be provided.

For further details and submission instructions, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/50th-bsc

Contact Brandie Ratliff, Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, with any questions.

Posted on

Dumbarton Oaks Collections Virtual Tour

 

We would like to invite you to  a virtual handling session of some of Dumbarton Oaks’ collections of Byzantine bronze and ivory, delivered by Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, curator of the Byzantine Collections.

Monday 25 March at 18:00 UK time. Please register in advance here.

 

 

 

Posted on

Justice in Byzantium – 13th to 15th April 2024

In 2024, the Symposium will take place in Canterbury at the University of Kent, for the first time.  The chosen theme is ‘Justice in Byzantium’. This theme will facilitate inter-disciplinary discussion of research and ideas embracing Byzantine history, society, culture, and law. Sessions will be arranged around the themes of ‘Social Justice’; ‘Unwritten Rules’; ‘Criminal Justice’; ‘Revenge’; ‘Civil Law & Justice’; and ‘Divine Justice’.
The main sessions of the conference will be held in the Templeman Lecture Theatre, with a reception and dinner in the Darwin Conference Suite, Darwin College.
Confirmed speakers include Daphne Penna, Dennis Stathakopoulos, Carlos Machado, Arietta Papaconstantinou, Rosemary Morris, Anna Kelley, Lorena Atzeri, Mike Humphreys, Catherine Holmes, Robert Wisniewski, Peter Sarris, Matthijs Wibier, Simon Corcoran, Caroline Humfress, Maroula Perisanidi, Dan Reynolds and Shaun Tougher.
Please keep checking the website periodically: further information will be added in due course, and continuously updated. The complete programme can be found here: Conference Programme.
To register please click here.