The Byzness, 8th December 2024
Oxford University Byzantine Society
THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY BYZANTINE SOCIETY
The Byzness, 8th December 2024
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1.
NEWS AND EVENTS
2. CALLS FOR PAPERS
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1. NEWS AND EVENTS
The Funerary Archaeology of Byzantine Constantinople. New Approaches, New Discoveries
Date: 16th–17th January 2025
Zoom registration: here!
Contact: fabian...@archaeologie.uni-freiburg.de
Mortuary practices are cultural phenomena common to humanity, and therefore burials and the “archaeology of death” have long been recognized as essential sources for all archaeologies. This is also true of Byzantine archaeology, and in recent decades graves and tombs, cemeteries and burial churches have increasingly been the focus of historical, art historical, and scientific research. By reason of its importance and size, the Byzantine capital of Constantinople occupies a central place in the historical development of Byzantine burial practices, and its funerary archaeology can be recognized as an essential source for understanding society, religion, demography, and urbanism in the imperial city. However, despite this importance, in contrast to the funerary archaeology of Old Rome, that of Constantinople is relatively poorly documented and often badly preserved, with data scattered in disparate publications, and lacks a theoretical base and detailed synthesis. Fundamental information is still lacking, and even what is known has never been systematically compiled and evaluated.
Our conference seeks to address these issues by focusing on new approaches, new methodologies, and new discoveries. We aim to synthesize and devise a new understanding of the funerary archaeology of Constantinople and its suburbs, moving beyond just the primary documentation of empirical data to consider challenges of its recovery and interpretation, and to build up a new diachronic understanding of the development of burial practices in the capital region from the 4th to the 16th centuries. By using the term ‘funerary archaeology’ we wish to encourage the development of an inclusive, holistic, and multidimensional approach to this subject, one that brings together historical texts, archaeology, and scientific data in interpretive dialogue, and which is sensitive to theorizing in other funerary archaeologies. Our aim is to take a broader view than solely the prestigious and well-published monuments (imperial tombs, aristocratic burial churches), although they should be included in such a conference. Rather than just reprising what is well-known and well-published about such monuments, we aim to put these elite burial practices into proper relation with the rest of the funerary archaeology and written sources that document the other mortuary populations of Constantinople.
Without neglecting the obvious religious, artistic, and historical dimensions of the funerary archaeology of Constantinople, particular foci, in terms of papers and the desired outcomes of the conference, will be:
- To gain better understanding of the funerary archaeology itself, the historical development of grave and tomb types, and burial styles, by synthesizing old and new material.
- To explore the construction of individual and collective identities in death through burial by examining the mortuary practices of different social categories and groups, populations and ethnicities.
- To analyze the funerary archaeology of Constantinople through the intersection of social status, religious belief, gender, culture, and ideology.
- To develop a better understanding of the organization, administration, and spatial distribution of burials and cemeteries, and of the chronological development of the same inside and outside the city, and thus to gain a better understanding of burial as an institution at Constantinople.
- By doing so, to enhance our understanding of the roles of burial places and the topography of death in the urban history and development of Constantinople from its foundation by Constantine I through the Ottoman conquest.
- More broadly, to contribute to our understanding of the evolution and interpretation of Byzantine burial practices, and to the development of its archaeological methodology and theory.
- To promote and stimulate a greater awareness of the importance and potential of Byzantine funerary archaeology in archaeologists, historians, and Byzantine scholarship in general.
Organizing Committee:
Martin Dennert (Freiburg)
Jesko Fildhuth (Freiburg)
Eric Ivison (New York)
Fabian Stroth (Freiburg)
Cognitive Elements of Medieval Manuscript Layouts: Designing and Using the Folio Space
Date: 18-19 February 2025. Time: 2pm-5pm GMT (3pm-6pm CET).
The Institute for English Studies at the University of London invites you to attend the 2025 Winter codicology and palaeography online short course.
See here for more info.
The seminar is online (held via Zoom), fully interactive, and designed as a small group workshop spread over two consecutive afternoons. It can be of interest to PhD and MA students and early career scholars within the fields of Manuscript Studies, Medieval Studies, Byzantine Studies, Classics, and ancient and medieval philosophy and science.
Course fees: £120 (standard), £80 (student).
Aurality & Devotion zoom lecture: D. Ahn on Blood and Wine: Singing Duality at Christ’s Circumcision Feast in 13th-Century Beauvais
Aurality & Devotion in the Pre-Modern World, a project sponsored by the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life at Columbia University, invites you to virtual gathering on zoom for a lecture on: ‘Blood and Wine: Singing Duality at Christ’s Circumcision Feast in 13th-Century Beauvais by Dongmyung Ahn’
EST (New York) Friday, Dec. 13, 2024 Noon - 1:00 pm
To register and receive a zoom link, please complete this online form by December 11, or email Georgia Frank (gfr...@colgate.edu)
Prof. Nathanael Aschenbrenner and Prof. Jake Ransohoff - Collaboration in Academia
The BSANA Graduate Committee invites graduate students and early career academics to a digital workshop on December 12, 2024, at 2 pm EST (11 am PST). This event explores essential skills and approaches to navigate collaboration within academic settings.
Our speakers, Professor Nathanael Aschenbrenner and Professor Jake Ransohoff, will share insights from their experience co-editing the volume The Invention of Byzantium in Early Modern Europe (2021).
Please join us and come with questions about collaboration in academia and publishing edited volumes. To attend, please RSVP at the link here. A reminder email with the Zoom link will be sent out before the event.
We look forward to seeing you on December 12th.
The BSANA Graduate Student Committee
2. CALLS FOR PAPERS
CFP "Cyril and the others: comparison and connection in Greek Lexicography" (PRIN PatriarX) - University of Messina, April 8th-9th, 2025
The Call for Papers for the 2-day workshop organized by Giuseppe Ucciardello (University of Messina, PRIN PatriarX), and Federica Scognamiglio (University of Messina, PRIN PatriarX) is still open for one more week! See below for more info:
Cyril and the others: comparison and connection in Greek Lexicography
The work on the “Lexicon” attributed to Cyril undertaken as part of the PRIN project “PatriarX: PAths of the TRansmission of SAint CyRil’s LeXicon” (Messina, Basilicata, Verona) aims at fostering an exhaustive investigation of the manuscript tradition of Cyril’s Lexicon. This study aims to delineate the preliminary stages of defining and understanding the material through comparative analysis with different lexicographical tools.
In this comparative study of the lexicographic materials, we encourage proposals focusing on the following topics:
- the content: analysis of a lexicographical collection as a whole or analysis of some lexeis according to their typology, such as synonymic and/or exegetical material;
- the linguistic “facies”: linguistic analysis of lexeis;
- selection and arrangement: the criteria for ordering the lexicographic material (e.g. alphabetical order based on the first, first two, or first three letters of the lemmata), or alternative methods of organizing the material (such as thematic groupings, or by word roots, etc.);
- palaeography and codicology: the layout (in papyri or Byzantine copies) or on handwritings of manuscripts containing scholarly or lexicographic material;
- editorial practice: methodological remarks on the practice of critically editing lexicographic materials;
- cultural and historical context: the socio-cultural contexts of lexicographic manuscripts (not only of the Cyril’s Lexicon) used as teaching tools or scholarly books in the East and West.
Proposals and deadlines
Proposals are encouraged:
- regular session (25 minutes): abstract of max. 250 words (bibliography excluded), and a short curriculum vitae of 100 words with name and affiliation.
- round table (15 minutes): abstract of max. 150 words (bibliography excluded), and a short curriculum vitae of 100 words with name and affiliation.
Proposals in Italian and English can be submitted to federica.s...@unime.it (in both format, Word and PDF): they should explicitly indicate the selected section of the workshop (regular session or round table).
Deadline for proposals is December 15th, 2024. Any decision on the selection will be communicated by January 15th, 2025.
The workshop will take place on April 8th-9th, 2025 at the Department of Ancient and Modern Civilizations - University of Messina, viale G. Palatucci 13, 98168 Messina. We can offer free accommodation, a welcome dinner, and refreshments.
For the complete CFP and for further information please write to federica.s...@unime.it or download the full text here.
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Alexander Johnston
MPhil in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies
President, Oxford University Byzantine Society
http://oxfordbyzantinesociety.wordpress.com