The Byzness, 21st February 2024
Oxford University Byzantine Society
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THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY BYZANTINE SOCIETY
The Byzness, 21st February 2024
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1. NEWS AND EVENTS
2. CALLS FOR PAPERS
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1. NEWS AND EVENTS
Mapping out Mythical Troy: The Spaces of Dares Phrygius' De Excidio Troiae and Ancient Scholarship on Homer's Geography
On Thursday, 22 February, at 4.45 p.m. (Warsaw time), at Ewa Wipszycka Warsaw Late Antique Seminar, Alexandra Madeła (UW) will present a paper Mapping out mythical Troy: The spaces of Dares Phrygius’ De Excidio Troiae and ancient scholarship on Homer’s geography.
It will be held in Room 203 at the Faculty of Law and Administration (UW main campus), but Zoom participation will be possible at this link.
Abstract:
Whereas modern audiences tend to treat Homer’s Iliad as predominantly a work of fiction, ancient readers viewed it as a poeticized account of a true historical event, the Trojan War. As such, ancient scholars studied Homer’s epic as a historical source, asking questions about details of the war, such as the landscape of the Trojan plain, or the birthplaces of Homer’s heroes.
In my talk, I will show that this kind of inquiry into Homer was not limited to scholarly commentaries, but was continued in works of fiction about the Trojan War. One such work is the late antique De Excidio Troiae Historia, which purports to be an eyewitness account of the Trojan War, composed by an eyewitness and participant in the war, Dares the Phrygian. I will demonstrate that De Excidio Troiae addresses many of the questions ancient scholars asked Homer’s geography. What differentiates Dares Phrygius from the author of a scholarly treatise is that a later scholar could only interpret the Homeric evidence, whereas Dares could claim to have firsthand knowledge of the Trojan War.
2. CALLS FOR PAPERS
14th Congress of the AIECM3 "Association Internationale pour L'Étude des Céramiques Médiévales et Modernes en Méditerranée"
RAVENNA
18/11/2024 -23/11/2024
The XIV Congress on Medieval and Modern Period Mediterranean Ceramics of AIECM3 is organized by the University of Bologna, Fondazione Flaminia, with the patronage of the municipality of Ravenna, on 18th -23th November 2024. AIECM3 is an International Association for the study of medieval and modern pottery in the Mediterranean. It organizes the International Conference every three years and also programs innovative thematic workshops.
The work of the association has been essential for new achievements and significant reflections about history of pottery. The Congress of AIECM3 to be held for the first time in Ravenna proposes to continue with the lines of research that emerged from previous international congresses, in addition to emphasizing discussion and debate.
SESSIONS
1. Ceramic consumption patterns
Contributions dedicated to the reconstruction of the use of ceramics in medieval and post-medieval societies. For instance, interpretations of the way in which consumers accept and negotiate trends in their temporal, social, geographical context, etc. It is encouraged to present analysis using different kind of sources, including material or written sources, ethnographic approaches and reflections on quantitative aspects among others.
2. Ceramic production, technology and archaeometry
Archaeological excavations constitute the essential source of information for the study of ceramics throughout the Mediterranean. In this session will be present the various workshops, manufacturing techniques, the nature of new products, the transfer of know-how that can highlight both the relations between the hinterland of the Mediterranean region in Medieval and Modern periods. Studies on archaeometric topics are welcome. Also comprehensive research, such as territorial and cultural analysis.
3. Social significance of ceramic productions
Social groups can use artifacts as a way of expressing different aspects, such as identity. The functional analysis of ceramics is also an ideal ally for the interpretation of its symbolic meaning. In summary, contributions that discuss different registers of medieval and post-medieval daily life through ceramic analysis are welcome.
4. Pottery as a factor of commercial exchanges and shipwrecks
Medieval amphorae and discoveries in the wrecks are generally left as isolated studies within the general scientific research and publications on ceramics; but can reveal important information if they can be studied in context of urban consumption and on commercial exchanges routes.
5. Decorative and architectural ceramics
Architectural ceramic decoration (glazed brick, mosaic-tiles, decorative tiles, bacini) in different regions of the Mediterranean at different periods, but also ceramics used for constructive and secondary use purposes (vaulting fill; level raises; garden fences; dividing walls etc.).
6. New discoveries
This session includes those works focused on new research, findings, specific discoveries or preliminary studies in pottery finds. Also workshops or unknown and new ceramic productions from medieval and modern Mediterranean contexts.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Oral presentation. Communications will have a maximum duration of 20 minutes followed by a 10-minute discussion.
Poster. Specific investigations will have a place as posters. The posters will be presented on vertical DIN A0 (1.20 x 0.84 m). They will be integrated into the sessions where they will have a 10-minute presentation and discussion space.
The International Committee begins the process of receiving proposals for communications and posters from now until February 29th, 2024. The final selection of contributions will be made by the International Committee, in order to prepare and harmonize the sessions.
Proposals must include title, author's name, e-mail, institutional affiliation and abstract (300-400 words). The type of participation (oral communication or poster) and the session in which you want to participate must be specified. The International Committee may reorient the mode of participation of the proposals.
Proposals must be sent to the President of the Association (Sauro GELICHI: gel...@unive.it) and one of the members of the National Committee to which the proponent belongs.
National committees:
Spain
o Sergio ESCRIBANO RUIZ ▪ E-mail: sergio.e...@ehu.es
o Alberto GARCÍA PORRAS ▪ E-mail: agpo...@ugr.es
o Manuel RETUERCE VELASCO ▪ E-mail: manu...@ucm.es
France
o Henri AMOURIC ▪ E-mail: amo...@mmsh.univ-aix.fr
o Jacques THIRIOT ▪ E-mail: thi...@mmsh.univ-aix.fr
o Lucy VALLAURI ▪ E-mail: vall...@mmsh.univ-aix.fr
Italy
o Margherita FERRI ▪ E-mail: fe...@unive.it
o Sauro GELICHI ▪ E-mail: gel...@unive.it
o Alessandra MOLINARI ▪ E-mail: ale...@fastwebnet.it
Maghreb
o Chokri TOUIHRI ▪ E-mail: touihri...@inp.tn
Byzantine World
o Platon PETRIDIS ▪ E-mail: ppe...@arch.uoa.gr
o Yona WAKSMAN ▪ E-mail: yona.w...@mom.fr
Portugal
o Susana GOMEZ ▪ E-mail: s...@uevora.pt
o André TEIXEIRA ▪ E-mail: te...@fcsh.unl.pt
Middle East World and Ottoman
o Roland-Pierre GAYRAUD ▪ E-mail: rp.ga...@gmail.com
o Filiz YENISEHIRLIOGLU ▪ E-mail: fyeniseh...@ku.edu.tr
4. Conference languages
French, English, Italian and Spanish.
5. AIECM3 Awards
In order to encourage the participation of young researchers (under 35 years of age), the AIECM3 Awards will be launched, which will highlight the most interesting research from each session.
6. Other information
The selection of proposals will be communicated at the end of May 2024 (this second circular will announce accepted proposals). The third circular will be published in June 2024 with the preliminary program and practical arrangements for arrival in Ravenna and accommodations.
The final program will be published in July 2024 and included on AIECM3 website.
Congress will be held on 18th-23th November 2024.
For questions: aiecm3...@gmail.com
Connecting Late Antiquities Conference
(Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, 03-05.02.2025)
On behalf of Professors Julia Hillner (BCDSS) and Richard Flower (University of Exeter), we cordially invite colleagues to submit paper proposals for our conference on Connecting Late Antiquities, to be held at the University of Bonn, 3-5 February 2025.
Connecting Late Antiquities, generously sponsored by Germany’s Deutsche Forschungs-gemeinschaft and the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, is a collaborative project to create open, digital prosopographical resources for the Roman and post-Imperial territories between the third and seventh centuries. Its main aim is to digitise, unite, and link existing resources to make them more accessible and enhance their reach and utility. The enterprise will dramatically improve access to information about late-antique people for all scholars of this period and allow the easy integration of prosopographical material with online geographical, textual, epigraphic, and papyrological resources.
Technological developments have provided new opportunities for prosopography, including allowing for both constant updating and an expansion beyond the traditional focus on the higher echelons of society. The Prosopography of the Byzantine Empire and Prosopography of the Byzantine World projects provide excellent examples of the greater possibilities allowed by this approach. Connecting Late Antiquities will draw together material from a variety of major printed prosopographies and specialist digital databases, as well as incorporating entries for 'non-elite' individuals who are attested in ancient sources but have not been included in earlier publications. This approach will allow more extensive research into understudied figures and their social connections.
We have a limited number of slots for papers of up to 20 minutes in length and therefore invite colleagues to submit abstracts of max. 300 words (plus a brief bio) on any aspect of Late Antique prosopography.
We particularly welcome submissions suggesting new discoveries and approaches within the following themes:
· Prosopography and the rise of literature in Late Antique local languages, both western (e.g. Irish, Pictish, Welsh) and eastern (e.g. Armenian, Coptic, Syriac).
· Prosopography and the ‘usual suspects’ (aristocracies, rulers, office-holders, etc.).
· Prosopography and the ‘unusual suspects’ (e.g. anonymous individuals, marginalised individuals, religious minorities, non-privileged groups).
· Prosopography and gender.
· Prosopography and the challenges, limits, and opportunities of digital humanities.
· Methodological avenues to overcome traditional prosopographical segregations (e.g. clerical/secular, elite/lower-status, human/non-human).
Confirmed roundtable participants and speakers include Yanne Broux, Niels Gaul, Rodrigo Laham Cohen, Hartmut Leppin, Ralph Mathisen, Muriel Moser, Silvia Orlandi, Arietta Papaconstantinou, Claire Sotinel, Scott Vanderbilt, and Lieve Van Hoof.
We are hoping to cover three nights of accommodation in Bonn, travel expenses, plus all lunches and one conference dinner.
Please send your abstract plus bio to Jeroen Wijnendaele ( jwij...@uni-bonn.de ) and Jessica van ’t Westeinde ( jwes...@uni-bonn.de ) no later than the 1st of May 2024.
The Medieval Academy at 100: The 2025 Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America
The Centennial Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America will take place on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, hosted by Harvard University, Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis University, Fitchburg State University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stonehill College, Tufts University, and Wellesley College. While the conference will take place in person, the plenary lectures and some other events also will be live streamed. Plenary addresses will be delivered by Kristina Richardson (Professor of History and Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Virginia), Sara Lipton (Incoming President of the Medieval Academy of America and Professor of History, Stony Brook University), and Wendy Belcher (Professor of Comparative Literature and African American Studies, Princeton University). The Annual Meeting will be followed by the Sunday annual meeting of the Medieval Academy's Committee on Centers and Regional Associations (CARA).
Conference Location: The conference sessions, receptions, and pre-conference programs will take place at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Harvard campus is accessible by taxi and public transit from Boston's Logan Airport as well as from the South and Back Bay Amtrak stations. In addition to Harvard's own museums and libraries, visitors can take advantage of greater Boston's rich dining, entertainment, and cultural resources, including the Museum of Fine Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Boston Public Library, all easily reached by the MBTA subway from Harvard Square.
Proposals: The Program Committee invites proposals for papers and panels on any topic from scholars studying the medieval world in all its variety, in all disciplines, regions, and periods of Medieval Studies. Panels usually consist of three 25-minute papers, and proposals should be geared to that length. Panel organizers, however, may wish to propose different formats for their panels, and the Program Committee may choose a different format for some panels after the proposals have been reviewed. Any member of the Medieval Academy may submit a paper or panel proposal. Others may submit proposals as well, but they must become members in order to present at the meeting. Exceptions may be given to individuals whose specialty would not normally involve membership in the Medieval Academy. Please contact MAA Executive Director Lisa Fagin Davis (l...@themedievalacademy.org) with any questions about this policy.
We are particularly interested in papers and panels that cross traditional disciplinary and geographical boundaries, or that use various approaches to examine a given topic. Our goal is to create a rich and diverse program that embodies the conference theme "The Medieval Academy at 100,” placing detailed, methodologically rigorous scholarship on the Middle Ages into conversation with broader reflections on the histories and possible futures of Medieval Studies itself. We encourage those proposing papers and panels to engage with one or more of the threads below.
Threads: The Program Committee has created six threads for the Centennial Meeting, meant to promote critical engagement between scholars working on all aspects of the medieval world, as well as on more modern appraisals and interpretations of that world. These are:
1. Who? Subjects of Medieval Studies. Possible topics might include: identities (race, ethnicity, gender, religion); animals and the non-human; abilities and disabilities; and communities in theory and practice.
2. What? Definitions, Reevaluations, and Transformations. Possible topics might include: canons and canonicity; orthodoxies and heterodoxies; laws and norms; science and scientia; disciplines of/and Medieval Studies; and making the "Middle Ages", 1925-2025.
3. When? Beginnings, Endings, and Possible Futures. Possible topics might include: remembering and forgetting; periodizations and paradigms; environmental, evolutionary, and geological perspectives on the medieval; and the future(s) of Medieval Studies, 2025-2125.
4. Where? Space, Place, and Geographies. Possible topics might include: people, things, and ideas on the move; frontiers and boundaries; opportunities and challenges of the “global turn”; landscapes, wilderness, and lived environments; and preservation and effacement of the medieval.
5. Why? Reverence, Recycling, and Rejection of the Middle Ages. Possible topics might include: medievalisms and popular cultures of the medieval; aesthetics of the medieval; politics and the medieval, then and now; and what the Middle Ages might do for us today.
6. How? Frameworks for Research, Teaching, and Public Engagement. Possible topics might include: translation in theory and practice; digital medieval studies; the science of the medieval past; the Middle Ages in the contemporary classroom; and curating and exhibiting the medieval.
Submissions: Individuals may either propose individual papers or a full panel of papers and speakers, using the links provided below. Paper proposals should include the individual's name, professional affiliation (including independent scholar), contact information, paper title, and a brief (c. 150-word) abstract. Session proposals should include the name and contact information for the session organizer, the session title, a c. 500-word abstract, and information for each of the session participants (including proposed chairs and respondents). Those submitting paper and session proposals also will be asked to indicate the thread(s) with which their contributions might best be associated. All submissions are due by Monday, 3 June 2024. If you have any questions, please direct them to the Program Committee chairs at MAA...@themedievalacademy.org.
Selection Process: The Program Committee will assess paper and panel proposals via blind review during the summer of 2024, evaluating their quality, significance, and relevance to the conference themes. Those proposing papers and sessions will be informed of the Committee's decision by 15 September 2024, with the final program announced in late 2024. Please note that all Annual Meeting participants will be required to agree to abide by the MAA's Professional Behavior Policy, which can be found here.
The Medieval Academy offers several travel bursaries and awards in conjunction with the Annual Meeting:
1) Student Bursaries: Graduate students who are members of the Medieval Academy of America and who have had their papers accepted for presentation at the 2025 meeting are eligible to apply for a Medieval Academy Annual Meeting Bursary of up to $500. The bursaries will be awarded to graduate students for papers judged meritorious by the local Program Committee, and one applicant will be awarded the prize for Best Student Paper. The application includes a biographical form and the completed paper. The deadline for applications is 31 December 2024. Click here to apply.
2) Medieval Academy of America Travel Grants: The Medieval Academy provides a limited number of travel grants to help Academy members who hold doctorates but are not in full-time faculty positions, or are contingent scholars without access to institutional funding, attend conferences (including the Annual Meeting) to present their work. Awards to support travel in North America are $500; for overseas travel the awards are $750. These awards are adjudicated by the Academy's Committee for Professional Development, and the deadline for applications to travel to the Annual Meeting is 1 November 2024. Click here to apply.
3) Inclusivity and Diversity Travel Grant: The Academy will present the annual Inclusivity and Diversity Travel Grant of $500 to one Annual Meeting participant presenting an accepted proposal on the study of inclusivity and diversity in the Middle Ages, broadly conceived. This Grant will be adjudicated by the Academy's Inclusivity and Diversity Committee, and preference will be given to student, junior, adjunct, or unaffiliated scholars. The deadline for applications is 31 December 2024. Click here to apply.
Some additional travel funding may be available for those whose papers are accepted by the Program Committee, and who lack other sources of research funding. Priority will be given to part-time and contingent faculty, independent scholars, and graduate students whose institutions do not provide conference support. If you or members of your proposed session would like to be considered for travel funding, please check the appropriate box(es) in the submission portal.
Unruly Iconographies? Examining the Unexpected in Medieval Art
The "Excluded Third" in the Co-Production of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
SNSF CORE / ERC EuQu Conference
Villa Vigoni, Loveno di Menaggio (Como Lake, IT), 10-13 June 2025
Organized by Mercedes García-Arenal, Katharina Heyden, David Nirenberg, and Davide Scotto
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are often understood as an ensemble of three (‘Abrahamic,’
‘monotheistic,’ scriptural, or prophetic) religious communities and traditions. But often when adherents of two of these “sibling” religions interact, the third is treated as a figure to be marginalized, stigmatized, or instrumentally exploited vis-à-vis the others. Our conference proposes to explore this dynamic of the excluded third.
As an example of this dynamic, consider the 1501 mission of the humanist Peter Martyr of Anghiera, sent by Spain’s Catholic Monarchs to the Mamluk sultan Qanṣūh al-Ghūrī in Cairo. His goal was to reassure the Sultan about the treatment of the Muslims who had recently been converted to the Christian faith in Spain, offer the Mamluks military support against the Ottomans in the Eastern Mediterranean, and in return obtain protection for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. During his mission Martyr visited the garden of Al-Maṭariyya, renowned for its miraculous balsam, and believed to be a sacred site visited by Joseph, Mary, and Jesus during their flight to Egypt to escape Herod the Great’s slaughter of the innocents (cf. Matt. 2:1-19).
Martyr found the balm plant desiccated and dying, a condition he attributed to deliberate malice and desecration. For centuries, he explained, kings and sultans had forbidden Jews from approaching the holy fountain in the middle of the garden. The site was venerated by both Christians and Muslims, Martyr stressed, because the Virgin Mary had washed Jesus' clothes in it during the flight to Egypt, thereby endowing the fountain the power to water the miraculous balm. But the sultan’s “imprudent administrators” had recently allowed a Jew who professed to be a Muslim and his Jewish wife to enter the balm garden with their little son. The woman washed dirty laundry in the fountain, desecrating it. Hence the balm-producing shrubs had shriveled from the roots. The miraculous balm,
long preserved by an alliance between Christians and Muslims based on shared veneration of the Virgin, had been destroyed by the impurity of the common Jewish adversary, represented in an “infidel” Jew-child embodying the negative double of the infant Jesus.
Peter Martyr’s example is but one of many that unveil the “excluded third”, a figure of thought that often emerges in the ambivalent co-productive dynamics between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam across centuries. In the attempt of arrangement, rapprochement, or mutual understanding between two of them it is an often-used strategy to signal the third that the two agree is worse than the two antagonists and even to blame the third for complicating the dialogue between the two others. Martyr aimed to cozy up with the sultan and ally with the Mamluks while, at the same time, he wrote about the Muslims of Granada as “the bad sprouts” of Europe, themselves corrupted by the Jews.
This early modern episode concerns the polemical recourse to Judaism by a Christian actor who aims to establish a non-conflictual relation with a Muslim. But this is just one of many different variants of a two-vs-one scheme that, in the course of the rich history of interactions of the three religions from the early Middle Ages to the present, “excludes” time and again Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. When, for example, Muslim and Jewish scholars living in Fatimid and later Mamluk Egypt wrote polemically against the Trinity, both charged Christians with idolatry, identifying Christianity as a common theological enemy of the “Law.” The late twentieth-century concept of the “Judeo-Christian roots of Europe,” in turn, provides a politically relevant example of a third variant of this dynamic, one that often implies a strong anti-Islamic stance.
The aims of this conference are to describe variants of this dynamic of the excluded third, as well as to understand its causes, consequences, and cultural and theological products. We will embrace a long durée perspective, which may allow us to perceive whether variants of this dynamic prevail in given periods or contexts, and with what impact these might have on the co-production of the three religions.
We are inviting papers exploring the problem of the “excluded third” at any time or place in the interactive history of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, from their origin in Late Antiquity to today.
Travel expenses, accommodation costs, and meals at the Villa Vigoni from 10 to 13 June 2025 will be covered by the projects.
The submission deadline for proposals is June 1, 2024.
Please send your draft proposals (one page max.) and CV, both in English, to Katharina Heyden (katharin...@unibe.ch) and Davide Scotto (davide...@unipv.it).
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Alexander Sherborne
DPhil Candidate, Faculty of History
President, Oxford University Byzantine Society
http://oxfordbyzantinesociety.wordpress.com