The Byzness, 24th January 2024
Oxford University Byzantine Society
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THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY BYZANTINE SOCIETY
The Byzness, 24th January 2024
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1. NEWS AND EVENTS
2. CALLS FOR PAPERS
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1. NEWS AND EVENTS
Book Launch - Emperor John II Komnenos: Rebuilding New Rome 1118-1143
The Limits of Allegory: Biblical Exegesis and Political Commentary in Justus of Urgell and Caesarius of Arles
On Thursday, 25 January (4.45 p.m. Warsaw time), at Ewa Wipszycka Warsaw Late Antique Seminar, Yaniv Fox (University of Bar Ilan) will present a paper The limits of allegory: biblical exegesis and political commentary in Justus of Urgell and Caesarius of Arles.
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:
India on the Red Sea: The Early Byzantine Awareness of East Africa and South Arabia
February 15, 2024, from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m (GMT: -5).
Oak Room, Fellowship House 1700 Wisconsin Ave NW Washington, DC.
Public Lecture with Benjamin Garstad.
Abstract: From the late third and early fourth centuries we find a number of Greek and Latin texts that refer to a country at the southern reaches of the Red Sea as India and its inhabitants as Indians — in regions that had once been known uniformly as Ethiopia or Arabia. This novel usage recognized the rise of the kingdom of Axum in Abyssinia, as well as Himyar, her neighbour and rival across the straits, as a major regional power and the growing importance of the Red Sea to the Roman Empire as an avenue of trade, but also as a theatre for carrying on conflicts by proxy with the old enemy, Persia. Calling them Indians distinguished the Axumites and the Himyarites from their neighbours, perhaps in terms of language and appearance, but undoubtedly in terms of politics and religious adherence. The negus in Axum and the emperor in Constantinople tended to enjoy friendly relations and the Axumites, unlike the Nilotic peoples who continued to raid the Province of Egypt, were early converts to Christianity. The designation of Abyssinians and Yemenites as Indians appears to have originated with a narrative of primeval migration from the Indus to the headwaters of the Nile, presented by Philostratus as a past-life recollection in the Life of Apollonius and integrated by Eusebius of Caesarea into his Chronicle. It thus gives us a fascinating insight into the ways that people in the late antique Mediterranean generated geographic and ethnographic knowledge and came to understand new and exotic people in the world around them.
The Byzantine Portrait: Personhood and Representation
April 19-20, 2024
Symposium in Byzantine Studies
Music Room, Dumbarton Oaks 1703 32nd Street NW Washington, DC
This event will occur in-person and will not be live-streamed or recorded.
In recent years, questions of identity, individuality, and subject formation have been at the forefront of Byzantine studies. Scholarship on autobiographical writings, for instance, has demonstrated that the adoption of exemplary voices and roles can enable self-expression, and therefore that the individual and the normative are not necessarily opposite. Similarly, students of Byzantine theology have drawn attention to the discourse on personhood that developed in the course of the trinitarian and iconoclastic controversies, and allowed Byzantine thinkers to conceive of the human subject both in its autonomy and in its relation to others. The cumulative effect of these studies is to undermine the strict dichotomy between individual and type. Subject formation in Byzantium is no longer negatively defined by the absence of Renaissance individualism. It is understood instead as a process of self-definition through engagement with multiple, sometimes widely varying, models.
These advances urge a reconsideration of the category of portraiture in Byzantine culture. How did individual and type play out in the visual realm? What was the human face ontologically and epistemologically, and how did it disclose identity? How did various conceptual frameworks and contexts of use—theological, legal, or ritual—enable portraits to stand in for, rather than merely represent, their human referents? And how did other media of representation, including inscriptions, monograms, and seals, relate to physiognomic likenesses? In pursuing these questions, we hope to formulate a new model of the Byzantine portrait. Such a model will necessarily be dynamic, changing over time as artistic media and conceptions of the self change. By bringing together art historians and scholars of Byzantine literature and theology, we seek to foster dialogue across disciplinary boundaries. Furthermore, we hope to place Byzantine images and texts in relation to recent historical and theoretical work on portraiture, personhood, and representation in the wider premodern world.
Symposiarchs
Benjamin Anderson (Cornell University)
Ivan Drpić (University of Pennsylvania)
Speakers
Benjamin Anderson (Cornell University), “The Empire’s Three Persons”
Ivan Drpić (University of Pennsylvania), “How to Portray a Serbian King”
Michael Grünbart (University of Münster), “Condensing Personhood: The Monogram as a Non-Mimetic Form of Individual Representation”
Cecily Hilsdale (McGill University), “Imperial Donors: Portraiture and Gift-Giving”
Martin Hinterberger (University of Cyprus), “Physical Appearance and Literary Production as Aspects of Personal Identity in Byzantine Hagiography”
Karin Krause (University of Chicago), “Author Portraits in Byzantine Manuscripts”
Aden Kumler (University of Basel), Concluding Remarks
Stavros Lazaris (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), “Principles of Differentiation and Identity in Greek Scientific Manuscripts”
Stratis Papaioannou (National Hellenic Research Foundation), “The Literature of the Self in Byzantium”
Foteini Spingou (University of Edinburgh), “Between Stone and Soul: Shaping Byzantine Personhood through Tomb Epigrams”
Thelma Thomas (New York University), “Book-men: Symbolic Portraits of Ascetics’ Lives in Late Antique Egypt”
Alexis Torrance (University of Notre Dame), “The Ever-Depictable Individual, the Ever-Relative Image: Navigating Permanence and Transience in Byzantine Iconophile Thought”
Alicia Walker (Bryn Mawr College), “Distributed Personhood and the Byzantine Lead Seal”
2. CALLS FOR PAPERS
Call for Proposals - Coptic Christianity Conference
The Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University invites proposals for a two-day, in-person scholarly conference on a theme related to Coptic Christianity. The Orthodox Christian Studies Center will cover travel, accommodations, and meeting expenses for two conference organizers and up to twelve conference speakers. We are looking for proposals that focus on innovative topics, make a clear contribution to scholarship, and have the potential to bring to Fordham University both established and earlier-career scholars.
The proposed event must take place onsite at Fordham University at a date mutually agreed upon, ideally in the Summer or Fall of 2025.
Maximum Provision for Event: The Orthodox Christian Studies Center will provide economy roundtrip travel for up to 12 speakers (for a total of 12 presentations) and 2 organizers. No more than half of the funded travel can be international. Accommodations may be offered to US-based speakers for up to three nights (international speakers can arrange for four nights). The Center will provide for a speaker’s dinner the evening preceding the symposium, and a reception for all attendees.
The expectation is that the Symposium will result in a scholarly publication and preference will be given to proposals that include a plan for an edited volume. The presumption is that the organizer(s) will serve as the editor(s) for the volume, whether they deliver papers themselves or not. To that end, the Center will provide a $1000 honorarium to each speaker who provides a peer-review ready manuscript to the organizer(s). For their part, the organizers will each receive a $3000 stipend when the manuscript has been accepted for publication (if the organizers are among the twelve presenters, they can receive $4000 in total). If necessary, the Center will provide a publication subvention for an appropriate academic press.
Eligibility: The Orthodox Christian Studies Center encourages proposals by scholars, who are affiliated with a university or research institution and hold a PhD or other appropriate terminal degree. Proposals from both United States citizens and non-US citizens are welcome.
Proposals: Should include a conference rational of approximately 800 words and a list of 12 potential speakers along with some indication of what those particular speakers would be qualified to contribute. The list of speakers need not be final at the time of submission and it is likely that the selection committee will make suggestions regarding the list speakers if the proposal is accepted or if some speakers are unable to participate.
All Proposals are due by February 15th, 2024. Our expectation is that we will be able to announce the winning proposal by March 15th, 2024.
Selection criteria: The Orthodox Christian Studies Center will evaluate proposals based on the coherence and appeal of the proposed topic to both Coptic Christian Studies and to Orthodox Christian Studies more broadly. The selection committee might prioritize those topics that successfully bridge ancient and modern Coptic Studies.
Please send proposals to George Demacopoulos (demaco...@fordham.edu) with “Coptic Conference Proposal” in the subject line.
13th International Symposium of Byzantine Sigillography: "Tradition and Innovation"
Following the 12th International Symposium of Byzantine Sigillography held in St. Petersburg in 2019, it is now our pleasure to announce the next Symposium, due to take place in Cologne in 2025.
The Symposium is organized under the auspices of the ANR/DFG Project DigiByzSeal – Unlocking the Hidden Value of Seals: New Methodologies for Historical Research in Byzantine Studies (https://uni.koeln/BLX43) and will represent the closing event of this fruitful French-German cooperation. It will take place on March 27–28, 2025 at the University of Cologne.
With the theme “Tradition and Innovation”, we will delve into the intricate balance between traditional methods and contemporary advancements within the field of Byzantine Sigillography. Throughout the symposium, we will explore various topics including but not limited to:
- the study of the Byzantine administration
- prosopography
- social history and identity
- imagery on Byzantine seals
- linguistic aspects of Byzantine seals
- cross-cultural influences and exchanges in Byzantine sigillography
- digital approaches and innovative methodologies in the study of seals
We encourage you to submit your original research and join us in advancing the field. Please submit a title and an abstract (max. 300 words) by filling in the form that you will find at this link https://uni.koeln/6ZXJA by March 31, 2024. All relevant documentation should be sent at the following address: siegel-s...@uni-koeln.de. You will be informed as to the outcome of your proposal by the end of May 2024.
Papers should be 20 minutes in length, plus 10 minutes for discussion. The languages admitted for the presentation are German, English, and French. Proposals for coordinated panels (three papers spanning 90 min. in total, including discussion) are most welcome.
A limited number of bursaries are available to support the participation of unfunded scholars, primarily doctoral students and early career researchers. If you would like to apply for a bursary, please provide the relevant information as indicated in the form. We strongly encourage those of you who have a chance to do so to apply for funding from your home institution or third parties.
Should you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact.
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Alexander Sherborne
DPhil Candidate, Faculty of History
President, Oxford University Byzantine Society
http://oxfordbyzantinesociety.wordpress.com