The Byzness, 31st January 2024
Oxford University Byzantine Society
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THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY BYZANTINE SOCIETY
The Byzness, 31st January 2024
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1. NEWS AND EVENTS
2. CALLS FOR PAPERS
3.
JOBS AND SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
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1. NEWS AND EVENTS
Becoming and Un-Becoming Roman (Four Seasons Seminar Series)
16th February 2024
10:30H (CET)
Online Only
Register Here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMudO6vqzMsGNyVg0vSrKeIugOxrUZ1drlm#/registration
Albena Milanova: “Become and un-became Roman in the province of Scythia: a case study from the Low Danubian site of Zaldapa”
Annick Peters-Custot: “To be or not to be a Roman between the New Rome and the Ancient one? Romaness in Byzantine Southern Italy (10th-11th c.)”
James Morton: “They Do It Like This in Romania’ : Byzantine Canon Law in Catholic Southern Italy (13th–14th Centuries)”
Mihailo Popovic: “Muslim Rulers and Christian Princesses in the 14th and 15th Centuries: Legal Framework, Everyday Life and Fields of Activity”
'Byzantium as Europe's Black Mirror' - Lecture by Anthony Kaldellis
The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the 2023–2024 edition of its annual lecture with the Harvard University Standing Committee on Medieval Studies.
Friday, February 16, 2024 | 12:00 PM EST | Zoom
Byzantium as Europe’s Black Mirror
Anthony Kaldellis, University of Chicago
In the course of its long self-fashioning, “the West” (later “Europe”) set itself off as a superior alternative to a number of imagined Others, including the infidel world of Islam, the primitive nature of the New World, and even its own regressive past, the Middle Ages. This lecture will explore the unique role that Byzantium played in this process. While it too was identified as the antithesis of an idealized Europe, this was done in a specific way with lasting consequences down to the present. Byzantium was constructed not to be fully an Other, but rather to function as an inversion of the Christian, Roman, and Hellenic ideals that Europe itself aspired to embody even as it appropriated those patrimonies from the eastern empire. It became Europe’s twin evil brother, its internal “Black Mirror.” Once we understand this dynamic, we can chart a new path forward for both scholarly and popular perceptions of the eastern empire that are no longer beholden to western anxieties.
Anthony Kaldellis is a Professor of Classics at the University of Chicago.
Advance registration required at https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/byzantium-as-europes-black-mirror
This lecture is co-sponsored by the Harvard University Standing Committee on Medieval Studies.
Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjc...@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.
Africa and Byzantium: Past, Present, and Future
Friday, February 23, 2024 1–5:30 pm
The Met, Fifth Avenue, Bonnie J. Sacerdote Lecture Hall, Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education
What is African art? What is Byzantine art? The exhibition Africa and Byzantium presents the opportunity to examine these key questions. Join scholars as they share their perspectives on how definitions of African and Byzantine art overlap and diverge, how terms and perceptions have shifted over the past generation, and how we might develop frameworks that embrace complexity rather than assume a binary moving forward.
Before the program, explore Egypt’s Red Monastery with a mixed reality demonstration developed by Interactive Commons at Case Western Reserve University. Register now
Welcoming Remarks
1 pm
Andrea Myers Achi, Mary and Michael Jaharis Associate Curator of Byzantine Art, Department of Medieval Art, The Met
Session I: What Is African Art?
1:15 pm
Presentations:
Hiba Abid, Curator for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, The New York Public Library
Vince Bantu, Assistant Professor of Church History and Black Church Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary
George Makary, artist
Discussion
Moderated by Imani Roach, Assistant Curator, Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, The Met
Break
2:45 pm
Session II: What Is Byzantine Art?
3:15 pm
Presentations:
Roland Betancourt, Professor, Art History, University of California, Irvine
Elizabeth Bolman, Elsie B. Smith Professor in the Liberal Arts, Professor and Chair of Art History, Case Western Reserve University
Georgios Makris, Assistant Professor, Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory, The University of British Colombia
Discussion
Moderated by Helen C. Evans, Curator Emerita, Medieval Art, The Met
Closing Discussion
5 pm
Andrea Myers Achi, Mary and Michael Jaharis Associate Curator of Byzantine Art, Department of Medieval Art, The Met
Imani Roach, Assistant Curator, Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, The Met
Helen C. Evans, Curator Emerita, Medieval Art, The Met
(Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Africa and Byzantium.)
2. CALLS FOR PAPERS
Submissions Sought for the Doctoral Seminar 'Projecting Poetry'
The TORCH Network Poetry in the Medieval World (University of Oxford) is delighted to introduce “Projecting Poetry”, an initiative designed to promote cross-disciplinary discussion, foster collaboration, and provide a platform for DPhil/PhD students engaged in research across various fields and working on medieval poetry. The goal is to create an opportunity to present ongoing research to a diverse audience of fellow students and seniors.
We invite submissions from DPhil/PhD students at an early stage of their programmes, conducting research in any field and working on poetry in any area and culture of the medieval world (chronological boundaries may be discussed with organisers); any methodological approach is welcome. We especially encourage submissions that aim to explore potential intersections between academic disciplines.
Submission Guidelines
- Abstract: Please submit a 250-word abstract in English (PDF form) to ugo.m...@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk, including the (working) research title, name, affiliation, and contact information.
- Submission Deadline: Abstracts can be submitted any time during the academic year.
- Extended Descriptions: If accepted, speakers should present a document in English (max. 1,500 words) and a title fifteen days before the seminar, with a more extensive description of their interests, research goals and, if they wish, of the challenges they face. This document will be shared with the seminar participants; therefore, it should be accessible to non-specialists.
Event Structure
- Sessions will be organised online for non-Oxford students and in hybrid format during term time for Oxford participants.
- Each speaker will have 20 minutes to present their research; a discussion follows. The event will be conducted in English.
Contact Information
For further information and inquiries, please get in touch with Ugo Mondini at ugo.m...@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk.
Non-presenting seminar participants
If you want to take part in the seminars, both in person and online, please send an email to Ugo Mondini at ugo.m...@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk with your name, affiliation, research interests, and contact information.
Living Through Crisis: Urban Household Archaeologies in the Medieval World (European Association of Archaeologists Conference in Rome)
28th-31st August, 2024
Deadline for Submissions: 8th February, 2024
The organisers Ben Jarvis, Kirstine Haase, Luisa Radohs and Ben Morton are particularly keen to hear from researchers working on the archaeology of urban households beyond northern Europe. If you are interested in contributing to the session feel free to email Ben Jarvis (bp...@leicester.ac.uk) or submit your abstract directly via the EAA submissions system (https://www.e-a-a.org/eaa2024), looking up session number 629.
Session Abstract
The household offers a scale of analysis on persistence and change appropriate to understanding the variability of lived experiences in the medieval world. It offers a contrast to studies of towns and cities at the scale of the settlement, which are necessarily prone to degrees of generalisation and abstraction. Households are sites of consumption, social production, economic activity and care, which provide a window into the social relations constitutive of urban life. Urban households are heterogeneous, with varying economic bases, levels of wealth and demographic composition. As such, their study allows for the development of a nuanced understanding of how urban communities lived through the crises and turbulence of the Middle Ages, and, by extension, the complexity and diversity of urban lived experiences.
The aim of this session is to develop a comparative, household-scale approach to urban life in the medieval World (broadly conceived as the period c500-1600). Specifically, we wish to explore issues such as:
How do experiences of urbanity vary within and between households?
How did households experience and act on moments of crisis or change?
How do households contribute to the sustenance of the wider fabric of medieval urbanism?
How do the actions of households shape wider neighbourhoods, communities, and settlements, and how are they shaped by their wider social relations?
Contributions which explore a range of evidence including, but not limited to, material culture, buildings, environmental remains and historical sources are welcome, and contributions which explore households in an explicitly comparative sense are particularly encouraged. The session is a collaboration between 2 research projects; ENDURE: Urban Life in a Time of Crisis (which explores urban lifeways in later medieval England) and Consequences of Crisis (which explores the consequences of crisis on towns in later medieval Scandinavia).
3rd International Conference on Ancient Greek and Byzantine Technology
19-21.11.2024
Athens
The aim of the Conference is to present scientific papers on Ancient Greek Technology from the beginning to the Byzantine times and to highlight the recent findings of international scientific research in this field.
The Conference aspires to attract the participation of Archaeologists, Historians, Engineers, Chemists, Technologists and other scientists and educators, from Greek and foreign Universities, Research Centers and Services, engaged in research and study of Ancient Greek and Byzantine Technology.
Registrations are now open.
For the 2nd announcement of the Conference click here.
Annexes to the 2nd Announcement:
For the Application form click here.
For the Template for Writing the abstract click here.
Important dates
Due to bureaucratic delays and the intervening holiday period, the Organizing Committee has
decided to revise the important dates - as they are stated in the 1st Announcement - as follows:
• Submission of participation application by February 10, 2024 (instead of January 20, 2024).
The date is indicative and aims to facilitate the organization of the Conference.
• Submission of abstracts by March 15, 2024 (instead of February 29, 2024). Guidelines for
writing the abstracts are provided in the next paragraph.
• Approval of abstracts by April 10, 2024 (instead of March 30, 2024).
• Submission of full text and final abstract by June 30 (instead of June 20, 2024).
• Final approval of articles by July 30 (instead of July 20, 2024)
3. JOBS AND SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
Project
Profile
- has an interest in expanding their expertise to include digital approaches;
- has an excellent oral and written command of English or German;
- is willing and able to work both independently and as part of a broader research team;
- is expected to spend on average 80% of their time on their PhD research, and 20% on database development and academic and administrative services to the project and the research group;
- is expected to work in Leuven and is willing to work abroad in Innsbruck for 6 months.
Offer
- enjoy academic guidance by the PIs;
- be integrated into an attractive and diverse research environment, with people from various backgrounds, in different career stages and with different kinds of expertise;
- become part of an institute with a longstanding tradition of textual scholarship and research on the literature of the Christian East;
- benefit from project partnership with the Slavistics Department of the University of Innsbruck;
- have funding available for costs related to the research, e.g. to travel to conferences.
Interested
KU Leuven strives for an inclusive, respectful and socially safe environment. We embrace diversity among individuals and groups as an asset. Open dialogue and differences in perspective are essential for an ambitious research and educational environment. In our commitment to equal opportunity, we recognize the consequences of historical inequalities. We do not accept any form of discrimination based on, but not limited to, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, age, ethnic or national background, skin colour, religious and philosophical diversity, neurodivergence, employment disability, health, or socioeconomic status. For questions about accessibility or support offered, we are happy to assist you at this email address.
Do you have a question about the online application system? Please consult our FAQ or email us at ap...@kuleuven.be
Two New Post-Doc Positions at the University of Silesia in Katowice
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Alexander Sherborne
DPhil Candidate, Faculty of History
President, Oxford University Byzantine Society
http://oxfordbyzantinesociety.wordpress.com