The Byzness, 20th October 2024
Oxford University Byzantine Society
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THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY BYZANTINE SOCIETY
The Byzness, 20th October 2024
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1. NEWS AND EVENTS
2. CALLS FOR PAPERS
3. JOBS AND SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
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OUBS fees
As many of you are aware, OUBS could not operate without the generosity of our members. Membership is not a requirement to stay subscribed to either of our mailing lists, however it is for participation in any of the exciting events we hold throughout the year, such as our International Graduate Conference. Membership is £15 for graduate students and £20 for non-graduates. If you are a member and would like to renew your membership, or if you want to become a member, please pay your membership fees for this year to the following bank account by the end of this week:
OUBS
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1. NEWS AND EVENTS
John of Ephesus and the Age of Justin II: The View from the Western Mediterranean (Frankfurt-Leuven)
The Frankfurt-Leuven project “Commentary on John of Ephesus’s Ecclesiastical History” organizes a series of occasional lectures on John of Ephesus. These are open to the public via Zoom. The next lecture will be given by Sihong Lin (Glasgow) on Monday, 28 October, at 4 pm CEST (3 pm London time). Sihong will be talking on “John of Ephesus and the Age of Justin II: The View from the Western Mediterranean”.
The Zoom link can be found here.
(Exploring the) Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, workshop by Elias Petrou (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Zoom, Friday, November 22, 2024, 12:00–3:00 PM EST
This workshop offers an introduction to the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG), an essential digital library encompassing Greek literature from antiquity through the Byzantine period to the modern era. Designed for scholars in various fields, this session will demonstrate how to utilize the TLG effectively in academic research.
The three-hour workshop will consist of two main parts. In the first part, we will explore the history and development of the TLG, founded in 1972 at the University of California, Irvine, and its evolution into one of the most invaluable digital tools for Greek literature worldwide. We will detail the process of digitizing Greek texts, making them accessible globally, and demonstrate the current interface and its various capabilities. The second part will be more practical, focusing on the actual usage of the database. Through specific examples, participants will have the opportunity to apply the information provided and experience the TLG in action. From simple searches for words and authors to parallel browsing of works and intertextual phrase matching (N-Grams), attendees will learn and apply the various functionalities of the TLG to their own research.
This workshop addresses a wide range of scholars across different disciplines. Given the vast number of texts from antiquity to the modern era and the continual updates to the TLG database, its material and search capabilities can significantly aid the research of Classicists, Medievalists, Byzantinists, Art Historians, and many others. Even if Greek literature and text study are not central to your work, the TLG can provide support in understanding historical context, exploring iconography and symbolism, offering stylistic and technical analysis, facilitating cross-disciplinary research, and more.
Join us to discover how the TLG can be an invaluable tool in broadening the scope of your research and enriching your understanding of Greek literature from antiquity to modern times.
Registration closes Wednesday, November 13, 2024.
Who is eligible
- Graduate students and early career researchers (PhD received after October 2016) in the field of Byzantine studies.
- All participants must be BSANA members. BSANA membership is free for graduate students and early-career contingent scholars who have earned their PhD within the last eight years and who do not hold a permanent or tenure-track appointment. If you are not already a BSANA member, please complete the BSANA Membership Form (https://bsana.net/members/) before registering for the workshop. Your membership status will be confirmed before your space in the workshop is confirmed.
To read a full description of the workshop and register your interest, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/exploring-the-tlg.
Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjc...@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, with any questions.
“This Holy One is Mother, Father, and Sister to Me”: Gender and Beyond in Byzantine Hagiography (Lucy Parker, University of Nottingham)
Friday, November 7, 2024 | 12:00 PM (EST, UTC -5) | Zoom
Gender has proved a powerful analytical framework for interpreting late antique and Byzantine hagiography. Historians have argued that male and female saints’ lives contained important differences, even perhaps forming different “subgenres” of hagiography. It has been suggested that, in contrast to male saints who fought external evil in cities or in the remote desert, female saints lived more cloistered lives and had to fight their own internal weaknesses. Some hagiographers emphasised that it was particularly impressive for women to achieve holiness given their innately weak and sinful nature. Female saints are often shown transcending their femininity, becoming “manly” as a necessary part of their journey to sanctity.
Yet this lecture will ask whether we have gone too far in drawing a clear distinction between the lives of female and male saints. It will explore some hagiographies of female saints (including the Life of Martha, mother of Symeon the Younger, the Life of Matrona of Perge, and the Life of Irene of Chrysobalanton) that do not fit neatly into the paradigms identified as characteristic of female lives. It will ask whether these unusual lives can be seen merely as exceptions to the general trend, or whether they force us to rethink our broader models, and to question how far a stark male-female gender binary determined understandings of holiness. Not all hagiographers were equally concerned with the differences between men and women, and not all female saints are presented as held back by, or needing to transcend, their femaleness. Rather than imposing a binary gender framework on hagiographic writing, we can instead explore variability in the use of gendered language and the gendering of holiness, and consider when and why gender and specific understandings thereof became particularly important in processes of sanctification.
Lucy Parker is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nottingham. She joined the University of Nottingham in 2023, after seven years working at the University of Oxford, where she also completed her doctorate in 2016. Her first book, Symeon Stylites the Younger and Late Antique Antioch: From Hagiography to History, was published by Oxford University Press in 2022. As well as Byzantine hagiography, she also works on Syriac and Eastern Christianity in the Early Modern period.
Advance registration required. Register: https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/gender-and-beyond-in-byzantine-hagiography
Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjc...@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.
2. CALLS FOR PAPERS
Fifth Armenia & Byzantium Workshop (Oxford, 7th-8th February 2025)
Applications for presentation at the Fifth Armenia & Byzantium Workshop (Oxford, 7th-8th February 2025) will be received until 31st October 2024 - an extension of just over two weeks from the deadline originally announced in the circular attached (dates there now emended).
We would encourage advanced PhD students and Early Career academics to apply and shall look forward to receive your application
14th Annual International Graduate Student Workshop in Armenian Studies: “The Archive in Theory and Practice in Armenian Studies”
The Center for Armenian Studies at the University of Michigan invites proposals for papers for the 14th Annual International Graduate Student Workshop, to be held on Friday, April 4th & Saturday, April 5th, 2025. This conference will be in-person at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor campus, under the title “The Archive in Theory and Practice in Armenian Studies.”
Over the years, the Center for Armenian Studies has fostered dialogue with graduate students from around the globe through our annual graduate student workshops. Together with our faculty, graduate students, and visiting and postdoctoral fellows, we have charted new scholarly territory in Armenian Studies through these collective efforts.
This year’s workshop seeks to uncover the ways scholars engage with archives in their work in Armenian Studies research, both in theory and in practice.
Please submit an abstract of 250 words along with a CV by Friday, November 15, 2024, using this form.
Successful applicants will need to submit a paper or draft of presentation text (approximately 2000 - 2500 words) by January 31, 2025 to be circulated among workshop participants. Participants are also welcome to submit a draft of presentation slides at this time. The symposium will prioritize first-time applicants. At the workshop, participants will have 15 minutes to present their main arguments, plus additional time for questions and discussion.
CAS will make every effort to cover travel expenses. Per donor guidelines, preference will be given to those traveling from the Republic of Armenia.
For more information see here.
Launch of SNSF ADG Project HolyNet (23.10.2024, University of Fribourg and online)
The launch event of the new project SNSF ADG Project "Holy Networks. Locating, Shaping, and Experiencing Palestinian Loca Sancta (1187-1852)", supervised by Professor Michele Bacci, University of Fribourg.
23 OCTOBER 2024, 17.15 - 18.45 CET, University of Fribourg, MIS 03 3117
Prof. Dr. Hansjörg SCHMID, Vice-Rector, Greetings
Prof. Dr. Michele BACCI, Project and Team Introduction with Lecture
APERO (Hall Mosaïque)
For online streaming via Microsoft Teams, please see here.
For further info please message vesna.sc...@unifr.ch.
3. JOBS AND SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
Funded MA and PhD opportunities at Central European University, Vienna
The Department of Historical Studies at Central European University (Vienna, Austria) is pleased to announce its call for applications for the 2025/2026 academic year. The deadline is February 1, 2025.
Central European University is a graduate-level, English-language university with a multi-disciplinary Department of Historical Studies that offers the following programs:
• PhD in Late Antique, Medieval and Early Modern Studies (5 fully funded positions)
• PhD in Comparative History (5 fully funded positions)
• 1-year MA and 2-year MA in Historical Studies (History track and Late Antique & Medieval Studies track)
• 2-year MA in Museum Studies
The department’s programs are accredited in the US and Austria. Further information on the department and its programs can be found here: https://historicalstudies.ceu.edu/.
CEU provides a variety of need- and merit-based scholarships and various other types of financial support available to students at all levels and from any country (tuition waiver, stipend, housing awards, health insurance coverage): https://www.ceu.edu/financialaid.
Interested applicants can contact us at historic...@ceu.edu or join one of our admissions events. For further details and registration, see https://historicalstudies.ceu.edu/recruitment-events.
WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH FELLOWSHIPS
Deadline: January 15, 2025
This fellowship is intended to honor and remember Professor William Sanders Scarborough and to help foster diversity in the fields of Classical and Hellenic Studies and the Humanities more broadly by supporting students and teachers from underrepresented groups in their study and research at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
William Sanders Scarborough (1852–1926), the son of an enslaved woman and a freedman, was a pathbreaking African American Classical scholar and public intellectual. Scarborough’s scholarship included philological works on Greek and Roman authors, as well as studies of African languages and African American folklore. His First Lessons in Greek (1881) was the first foreign language textbook by an African American author. He taught at Ohio’s Wilberforce University and Payne Theological Seminary, serving as Wilberforce’s president from 1908–1920. At least twice in his life (1886 and 1896), Scarborough hoped to attend the American School, with the encouragement of the School’s Managing Committee. Lack of funding, coupled with his many professional responsibilities, kept Scarborough from realizing his dream of going to Greece.
Eligibility: Open to graduate students, faculty members (K-12 and all levels of post-secondary education), and independent scholars residing in the United States or Canada (regardless of citizenship) whose geographic origin, diverse experiences, and socio-economic background are underrepresented at the School (including persons from the Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Color communities). The fellowship is designed for such applicants whose studies, research, or teaching would benefit from residency at the School. Fellowship recipients need not be specialists in the field of Classical Studies. The School welcomes applicants from faculty of K-12 schools and from students or faculty from public and private universities, colleges, and community colleges; and encourages applications from Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Terms and Duration: The fellowship supports up to three months in residence at the School to carry out proposed research projects, to join the School’s academic programs (field trips and seminars during the academic year, excavations at the Agora or Corinth, ASCSA summer travel programs, scientific field schools, etc.), and/or to develop knowledge, resources, and collegial networks to enhance their teaching.
Applicants are encouraged to contact the Programs Administrator well in advance of submitting their proposal for advice on matching the resources and opportunities of the School to their needs and interests. Fellowship winners will be paired with ASCSA mentors who can assist them in planning and preparing for their time in Greece.
Applicants intending to use the fellowship to participate in an ASCSA summer program must submit the Scarborough application AND a separate application to the relevant program(s) of interest. Applicants wishing to use the Scarborough fellowship to offset costs of participation in the Regular Member academic program of the School must also apply directly for Regular Membership (deadline Jan. 15, 2025). The fellowship may not be held concurrently with
Regular Member Fellowships. The fellowship may not be held remotely; residency in Athens is required.
Awards granted in the January 2025 competition must be used between June 1, 2025 and May 30, 2026.
Each award provides for $1500 per month (rounded upwards to the nearest whole month to a maximum of 3 month) as a stipend. The fellowship provides room and board at Loring Hall, a waiver of any applicable School fees (including summer program course fees), and one roundtrip economy-class airfare to Athens (upon submission of receipt). Meals, Monday through Friday, are provided at Loring Hall for the fellow. If attending an ASCSA academic year trip(s), costs of participation are billed in Athens and can be paid from the stipend. Meals or incidental expenses outside Loring Hall are not covered by the fellowship.
The School intends to make up to three awards each year.
Application:
Submit an online application here, https://ascsa.submittable.com/submit/171376/william-sanders-scarborough-fellowship. A complete application will include:
- A 2-page, single-spaced, statement indicating your eligibility, describing the proposed use of the fellowship including any formal program at the School you plan to apply for, the proposed timeframe for your work at the School (this includes proposed dates of attendance), and your project or research goals (as applicable). Please note that you may only change the proposed dates of attendance indicated on your application, after acceptance, with approval from the School’s administration. Due to limited housing space, we may not be able to accommodate requested changes to the proposed dates.
- A curriculum vitae.
- A copy of current transcripts for student applicants (scans of official transcripts are acceptable).
- Arrange for two letters of recommendation. Recommenders will be asked to upload their letters via the online application system, Submittable. Upon submission of the online application, recommenders will be sent an automated email with instructions about how to submit their letters of recommendation. Or, applicants may choose to send the request at any time by clicking the "Send Request Now" button on the online application form.
For more information: https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/fellowships-and-grants
Questions? Contact: Alicia Dissinger, Programs Administrator, prog...@ascsa.org
Award decisions will be announced in March 2025.
See the online post here.
Call for Applications: Manoogian Postdoctoral Fellowships in Armenian Studies & History
The Center for Armenian Studies (CAS) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, invites applications for the 2025-26 Manoogian Postdoctoral Fellowships in Armenian Studies & History. These full-time 12-month positions, with an option for a one-year extension contingent on curricular needs and progress, are open to junior scholars who have completed a PhD within the last three years.
Application materials should be submitted using the online application form. Applications for 2025-26 postdoctoral fellowships must be received by January 15, 2025. Applicants will be notified of the results in March 2025.
For questions, please email cas.fel...@umich.edu. For details see here.
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Alexander Johnston
MPhil in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies
President, Oxford University Byzantine Society
http://oxfordbyzantinesociety.wordpress.com