The Byzness, 24th October 2023
Oxford University Byzantine Society
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THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY BYZANTINE SOCIETY
The Byzness, 24th October 2023
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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
Seminar by Emmy Noether Research Group 'Religious Conflict and Mobility, 700-900'
The Emmy Noether research group “Religious Conflict and Mobility, 700-900” cordially invites you to the first semester of the Tübingen Byzantine and Near Eastern Seminar , with a lecture by
Prof. Dr. Pamela Klasova
(Macalester College, Saint Paul, MN)
Imruʾ al-Qays and his poetical journey to Byzantium: Arabic poetry in Late Antiquity
on Thursday, October 26, 2023, at 6 p.m. ct
in the Hegel Building, ground floor, practice room 2
On Friday, October 27th, between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., the first semester of Readings in Classical and Christian Arabic with Dr. Habib Ibrahim will be held. Further information can be found online at https://uni-tuebingen.de/de/213202 and https://uni-tuebingen.de/de/241251 .
History of Liturgy Seminar
History of Liturgy seminar, Institute of Historical Studies, London
Monday 6th November
Paweł Nowakowski (University of Warsaw) and Helen Gittos (University of Oxford),
'The Archaeology of Liturgy: Objects and Inscriptions'
Seminar meeting begins at 5.30pm (GMT+0:00); this will be a hybrid meeting.
Talk by Princeton's Environmental History Lab
Princeton’s Environmental History Lab invites you to:
“The Long Shadow of the 536 CE”
Lee Mordechai, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
(Shelby Cullom Davis Center Fellow 2023-24)
Thursday, November 9, 2023
4:30 – 6:30 pm
209 Scheide Caldwell House & Zoom
*Light refreshments will be served starting at 4:00 pm.*
Registration is required for virtual attendance only.
Zoom registration link
Details
This talk investigates the construction of an environmental event in 536 CE, revealing how scholarly discourse in the natural sciences and the humanities over the past half century has transformed an ambiguous portent in the late antique literary sources into a major turning point in global history, associated with the end of antiquity and the beginning of the medieval period. Throughout the period, cutting-edge scholarship in the most esteemed venues has repeatedly interpreted the 536 event to fit contemporary public discourse, often presenting wishful thinking as fact with little supporting evidence. The challenges in the interdisciplinary research environment, as well as the porous boundaries between academic and para-academic discourse, are the causes for this phenomenon, which requires a critical reflection of our approach to interdisciplinary environmental history.
Index of Medieval Art Database Online Training Session
The Index of Medieval Art is pleased to announce that it will be holding a new online training session for anyone interested in learning more about the database. It will take place via Zoom on Tuesday, November 14, 2023 from 10:00 – 11:00 am EST.
This session, led by Index specialists Maria Alessia Rossi and Jessica Savage, will demonstrate how the database can be used with advanced search options, filters, and browse tools to locate works of medieval art. There will be a Q&A period at the end of the session, so please bring any questions you might have about your research.
Further information and registration can be found here: https://ima.princeton.edu/index_training/.
2. CALLS FOR PAPERS
55th SPBS Spring Symposium in Byzantine Studies - Call for Communications
The 55th SPBS Spring Symposium in Byzantine Studies will be held at the University of Kent (Canterbury, UK), from 13th-15th April 2024. The topic is ‘Justice in Byzantium’, a topic especially pertinent in our turbulent modern societies. Justice is one of the pillars on which every civilisation should be based even though it is not always granted for all, and Byzantium was no exception. Its inhabitants had to deal with justice-related issues in everyday life, but theoretical, religious, and philosophical implications were also involved in its very conception. These ideas are not merely reflected in written laws but in historical and literary works, as well as in unwritten rules, customs, and traditions.
Panels will discuss social, civil, divine, and criminal justice, as well as concepts of revenge and unwritten/ written rules. Our keynote speaker is Daphne Penna (Groningen). Confirmed speakers include Dionysios Stathakopoulos (Cyprus), Carlos Machado (St Andrews), Arietta Papaconstantinou (Reading), Rosemary Morris (York), Anna Kelly (St Andrews), Lorena Atzeri (Milan), Mike Humphreys (Cambridge), Catherine Holmes (Oxford), Robert Wiśniewski (Warsaw), Caroline Humfress (St Andrews), Peter Sarris (Oxford), Matthijs Wibier (Cincinnati), Simon Corcoran (Newcastle), Dan Reynolds (Birmingham), Shaun Tougher (Cardiff), and Maroula Perisanidi (Leeds).
Those interested in presenting a Communication (15 mins max) should contact Laura Franco (laura....@libero.it) with a title and abstract by December 15th 2023. For any queries relating to the Symposium, please contact Anne Alwis (a.p....@kent.ac.uk). Once the conference website with booking details is live, a further email will be circulated.
The Worlds of the Slavs: Food in the Worlds of the Slavs up to the 16th Century
The Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History Polish Academy of Sciences
The Polish Young Academy of the Polish Academy of Sciences
Committee of Slavic Studies of Polish Academy of Sciences
Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research
King’s College London
Cordially invite you to the third in a series of conferences on the theme:
‘Worlds of the Slavs’
Food in the Worlds of the Slavs up to the 16th century
Warsaw
September 18–20, 2024
The Slavonic-speaking region was a meeting place for various cultures and this is reflected in food production and eating habits. Food is clearly an essential part of everyday life. But besides the strictly biological, and closely related economic, dimensions of producing and selling food, there is also a symbolic, imagined one. These dimensions are reflected in various source categories: we find traces of the Slavs’ dietary habits not only in written sources like annals, chronicles, birch barks manuscripts, but also in material culture through art, archaeology, palynology and archaeozoology. These sources illustrate the symbolic and the material dimensions of food in Slav societies. In the early period, they were often inseparable: food consumption and production were subject to secular but also to canonical legislation and various religious customs and taboos (including non-Christian ones). In an emergency (war, famine, or elemental disaster), normative restrictions could be suspended or pragmatically circumvented. The social mobility which followed an increase in trade and travel led to the adoption of alien dietary habits and modification of one’s own. These customs may also have been, consciously or unconsciously, a means of discovering and creating identity: an important element in recognizing (and demarcating) the stranger, in strengthening interactions between communities, or in consolidating the rules of one’s own. At the conference, we welcome contributions on issues such as:
- Food production and changes in food production;
- Food as tribute;
- The ritual, symbolic, and magical dimensions of food;
- Long-distance and local food trade;
- Legal regulation of food production, trade, and consumption;
- Food storage practices;
- Reflections (medieval and modern) on healthy eating;
- War, famine, and environmental disasters and their impact on food habits;
- Perceptions of one’s own and others’ eating habits; food as an element of identity; migration of eating habits;
- Unusual eating habits; and
- Food practices in folklore.
Conference applications should be submitted by 28 February 2024: https://docs.google.com/forms/
The conference languages will be English and Polish. The organizers will provide accommodation.
Should you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us at: theworldo...@gmail.com.
Organizing Committee: Marta Font (coordinator, Pécs, Hungary), Adrian Jusupović (main coordinator, Warsaw, Poland), Aleksander Paroń (coordinator, Wrocław, Poland), Jonathan Shepard (coordinator, Oxford/Cambridge, United Kingdom), Alexandra Vukovich (coordinator, King’s College London, United Kingdom).
4th Mediterranean Studies Symposium (Auburn University) - 'Feeding the Mediterranean: Culinary (Re-)Inventions, Legacy and Hospitality'
13-16 June 2024 (PALERMO)
The idea of a Mediterranean cuisine was launched with Elizabeth David's book, A Book of Mediterranean Food (1950), a point of departure for most writers, some of whom sided with its author and focused on what they defined as Mediterranean fundamental ingredients (olive, wheat and grape); and some other who actually denied that the widely varied foods of the Mediterranean basin constitute a cuisine at all. Regardless, one can affirm that the Mediterranean cuisine encompasses the culinary trends shared by a diverse array of peoples that live in the region around the Mediterranean Sea, with some common traditions and inevitable differences; it is indeed the product of cultural exchanges as well as trading interactions among several peoples which has emerged as a unique legacy.
In “Pour une psycho-sociologie de l’alimentation moderne” (1961), Roland Barthes asserts that food is not only a means for human nutrition but a true system of communication, a collection of images, a protocol of uses, situations, and attitudes. Food and its preparation are the products of one’s upbringing, traditions, cultural heritage; the language through which one remembers, shares, celebrates, nourishes and nurtures, states one’s own identity; a variety of experiences sealed together by the flavors, smells, and appearances of the dishes one prepares daily for oneself and others. What better way of delving into the heart of Mediterranean, its peoples, its networks, and impacts, than to discover the unique cuisine and street food culture of this exciting region?
As the 4th Mediterranean Studies Symposium is held in Palermo, Sicily’s capital city, its multicultural and colorful food will serve as our backdrop and inspiration. Capital of street food, on the 5th place on the Forbes’ international ranking, Palermo boasts specialties like pani ca meusa, arancine, cassate and marzipane, frittole, panelle, and sfincioni, built on layers of influences from exchanges with Arabs, Greeks, Romans, and Normans.
We are seeking papers on the topic of food and hospitality in and of the Mediterranean from interdisciplinary perspectives (humanities, social sciences, international law, media studies, art, and other fields of research). Any historical period of reference is welcome though we strongly encourage presenters to focus on the early modern to contemporary times. Presentations of recently published books on the Mediterranean are also welcome IF related to this year’s topic(s).
This symposium will take place in Palermo, Sicily, from June 13 to June 16, 2024 and is co-sponsored by the University of Palermo’s Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza (JEAN MONNET CENTER OF EXCELLENCE 2019-2022, Mediterranean Studies).
Official language will be English (even though each session’s Q/A may be conducted in the language most comfortable for all parties involved). Since the organizers would like to create an informal and conducive atmosphere of dialogue and brainstorming, the number of proposals accepted is restricted. Presenters are welcome to bring along any relevant and recent publication for our symposium book display.
The symposium schedule will consist of presentations and lively discussions, alongside educational tours, cultural activities, and group meals.
PRICING
Symposium Fee is 180€ for faculty members; 95€ for graduate students and includes (full face-to-face participation):
- Program instruction and materials;
- Symposium facilities with staff support;
- Walking city tour, with food tasting, with local guides;
- Cultural activities and coffee breaks;
- Closing Meeting and Lunch at Moltivolti, Palermo
Send 250-word abstract along with a brief bio to Drs. Rosario Pollicino (poll...@mailbox.sc.edu) and Giovanna Summerfield (sum...@auburn.edu) by Nov 25, 2023. Upon the end of the symposium, selected essays will be invited for publication in English.
Parekbolai Journal - 'Anthologies, lexica and schooltext collections of the middle and late Byzantine period'
The e-journal Parekbolai invites paper proposals on "Anthologies, lexica and schooltext collections of the middle and late Byzantine period" for a virtual symposium to be held on December 8, 2023.
This call is open to and aimed at scholars in all stages of their career. Ph.D. candidates and postgraduate students are especially encouraged to apply.
Presentations (preferably in Greek or English) should last 20 minutes and abstracts (max. one page) should be submitted to: Ioannis Vassis (ivas...@lit.auth.gr) or Sofia Kotzabassi (kotz...@lit.auth.gr) by October
30, 2023.
Parekbolai
http://ejournals.lib.auth.gr/parekbolai
3. JOBS AND SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
Terms: A stipend of $11,500 plus room and board in Loring Hall, and waiver of School fees. Meals, Monday through Friday, are provided at Loring Hall for the fellow. Fellows are expected to be engaged full-time in the supported research from early September 2024 to late May 2025 and are expected to participate in the academic life of the School. Any concurrent employment requires the permission of the Director of the School. A final report is due at the end of the award period, and the ASCSA expects that copies of all publications that result from research conducted as a Fellow of the ASCSA acknowledge the support of the ASCSA and be contributed to the Gennadius Library.
Terms: A stipend of $11,500 plus room and board in Loring Hall, and waiver of School fees. Meals, Monday through Friday, are provided at Loring Hall for the fellow. Fellows are expected to be engaged full-time in the supported research from early September 2024 to late May 2025, and are expected to participate in the academic life of the School. Any concurrent employment requires the permission of the Director of the School. A final report is due at the end of the award period, and the ASCSA expects that copies of all publications that result from research conducted as a Fellow of the ASCSA acknowledge the support of the ASCSA and be contributed to the Gennadius Library.
Professor
Tufts University: School of Arts & Sciences: History of Art and Architecture
Description: The Department of History of Art and Architecture at Tufts University seeks an outstanding scholar at the rank of tenured full professor to teach and advise undergraduates and graduate students in the MA in Art History and MA in Art History and Museums Studies programs. The department offers majors in Art History and in Architectural Studies, as well as several minors, including Museums, Memory, and Heritage.
additional interest and expertise in cultural connections, diasporic relations between Armenia and the
wider world, as well as issues of cultural heritage preservation, among others. The successful applicant will be expected to teach art history undergraduate and graduate courses on Armenian art, architecture, and visual culture, on specific topics related to their own research, and broader thematic and/or theoretical threads that place Armenian Studies in larger art historical narratives.
Application Instructions: All application materials are submitted via http://apply.interfolio.com/134542 Please provide a cover letter, a CV, a research statement, a teaching statement that includes evidence of the candidate’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, teaching evaluations from the most recent two years of teaching to be uploaded in a single PDF, and a recently published journal article or book chapter of at least 8,000 words. Finalists will be asked to provide the names and contact information for three references.
For any questions regarding this position, please email amy....@tufts.edu. Review of applications will begin on December 15, 2023, and will continue until the position is filled.
The multi-year project Connecting Histories: The Princeton and Mount Athos Legacy aims to create an international team of faculty, staff, and students that will explore and bring awareness to the rich, complex, and remarkable historical and cultural heritage of Mount Athos, and its connection to Princeton. The collaborative team will engage in research, teaching, digitization projects, and descriptive cataloging over three years (2023–2026), exploring holdings throughout the Princeton campus, including Visual Resources and the Index of Medieval Art in the Art & Archaeology Department; the Mendel Music Library; and the Graphics Art Collection and Manuscript Division at Princeton University Library.
There are two short-term research opportunities opening up and details can be found in the 'Announcements' page of the website: https://athoslegacy.project.princeton.edu/
One of the two research positions is a part time graduate opportunity at the Index of Medieval Art. This is a two to three-month remote, part-time research opportunity to help incorporate key works of art on Mount Athos into the Index database. The position would require the student to examine the Index legacy records, update the metadata, identify new color images, and incorporate them on the online database. They will be trained in Index norms in cataloging works of art, describing the iconography, transcribing inscriptions, and adding bibliographic citations. This opportunity offers a stipend of $2,500 and has been generously funded by the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, with the support of the Dimitrios and Kalliopi Monoyios Modern Greek Studies Fund and Art & Archaeology Department at Princeton University.
For more details about eligibility criteria and the application process, please check the 'Announcements' page: https://athoslegacy.project.princeton.edu/announcements/
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Alexander Sherborne
DPhil Candidate, Faculty of History
President, Oxford University Byzantine Society
http://oxfordbyzantinesociety.wordpress.com