OxByzList: The Byzness, 22nd March 2026
Oxford University Byzantine Society
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THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY BYZANTINE SOCIETY
The Byzness, 22nd March 2026
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1. NEWS AND EVENTS
2. CALLS FOR PAPERS
3. JOBS AND SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
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THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY BYZANTINE SOCIETY
The Byzness, 22nd March 2026
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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
Dear all,
This edition of The Byzness comes to you from Sicily! We’re on the last leg of our trip, arriving in Palermo today. We’ve been up to so many exciting things, including a private tour of the rock-cut churches and tombs at Cava d’Ispica and the Byzantine settlement at Kaukana by dr. Saverio Scerra, a regional Sicilian archaeologist and the superintendent of Ragusa. We are so grateful for his enthusiasm, expertise, and generosity in showing us around. Some other sites we’ve visited include the catacombs and the Jewish baths in Syracuse, and the stunning mosaics at Villa Romana del Casale yesterday.
The trip is not over yet, however! We’ve got a couple more days, which you can follow along on our socials:
Instagram: @ox_byz
Bluesky: @oxunibyzantinesoc.bsky.social
X/Twitter: @oxbyz (if you do follow us on X, we are transitioning over to Bluesky, so please do follow us there in the first instance)
Best,
Nidanu
For those wishing to submit an event, call for papers, job or scholarship opportunity to the Byzness please send details to the committee at byzantin...@gmail.com indicating the relevant list for The Byzness our external to Oxford and year-round newsletter or The Byzantine Lists our Oxford-centered events and circulated only in term-time. Please keep the listing brief and include all relevant information in the body of the notice. Outside of exceptional circumstances, we only share events once.
Lectures: by Erica Rowan, March 26, 2026, 5:00pm and by Leonora Neville and Berke Çetinkaya, March 27, 2026, 4:00pm
Boğaziçi University Byzantine Studies Research Center cordially invites you to two lectures:
Erica Rowan, “Peaches, Plums, and People: Late Antique Diet in Western Anatolia”, atBoğaziçi University (March 26, 2026, 5:00pm)
Leonora Neville and Berke Çetinkaya, “Thinking and Translating ‘Byzantine Gender’”, with Bihter Sabanoğlu as discussant, at ANAMED (March 27, 2026, 4:00pm) [a joint event with ANAMED]
Please find below further information on these lectures. Posters are attached. Further details are also available on our website:
https://byzantinestudies.bogazici.edu.tr/events.
Cotton Genesis Conference at the British Library in London, 19 June 2026
The British Library recently undertook a new multispectral digitisation campaign of the Cotton Genesis (British Library, Cotton MS Otho B VI), one of the greatest works of manuscript art to survive from late Antiquity and one of the most tragic casualties of the Cotton Library fire of 1731.
The new imagery made visible parts of the manuscript unseen since the fire. Pages that look black to the naked eye now reveal portions of readable texts; illuminations that look like blocks of colour now show layers of paint, brush strokes, and fold outlines.
This opens exciting opportunities for new research on this manuscript, which is a significant witness both of an influential late-antique visual tradition and of the text of the Septuagint. The British Library will celebrate the launch of the multispectral images of the Cotton Genesis on its website with an interdisciplinary conference fully dedicated to the manuscript.
If you would like to attend the conference at the British Library's Knowledge Centre, 96 Euston Rd., London on 19 June 2026 (in-person event only), please book at https://events.bl.uk/events/multispectral-gaze, where you also find the programme.
Seminar, 19/03/2026: Nicholas Melvani (Université de Mainz), « Inscriptions in Palaiologan Constantinople : epigraphic texts in monastic and military contexts »
Histoire de la période paléologue (1261-1453). Byzance, Orient latin, mondes slave et turc
Séminaire organisé par Marie-Hélène Blanchet (CNRS, UMR 8167 Orient et Méditerranée, Monde byzantin) et Raúl Estangüi Gómez (CCHS-CSIC, Madrid), IRBIMMA Esc. B, 4e étage salle H305, accès par le 17 rue de la Sorbonne, 75005 Paris
La prochaine séance du Séminaire paléologue, toujours sous forme hybride, à la fois en présentiel, mais aussi sur Zoom, aura lieu le : Jeudi 19 mars 2026, 17h-19h
Lien Zoom: https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/96660601696?pwd=G6UqfgU2hdmqIFY3ZalXHibOdCYzVI.1
ID de réunion: 966 6060 1696
Code secret: 6UW5gj
International Conference – Critical Edition and Translation of Ancient Classical Texts (CUHK, 15–16 May 2026)
Upcoming international conference, "Recovering the Past: Critical Edition and Translation of Ancient Classical Texts", to be held at The Chinese University of Hong Kong on 15–16 May 2026. The programme includes papers from distinguished colleagues in Syriac studies.
Registration is open. More info here.
Lecture "Sex and the City: the Eunuchs of Constantinople." - Prof. Shaun Tougher (Thursday 26 March at 5.30 pm. Hybrid.)
Classics and the Institute for Medieval Studies at Leeds are holding their 4th annual joint event. All welcome. To attend online register at https://lnkd.in/ebPDzjPC
Generously supported by Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
Abstract:
Both the academic study and popular engagement with the subject of eunuchs continue to grow apace. Georges Jablonski-Sidéris has just published his book on early Byzantine eunuchs, Les anges du Palais, and the celebrated designer and director Tom Ford recently announced he is filming Anne Rice’s novel Cry to Heaven, which focuses on the castrati singers of eighteenth-century Italy. This talk will reflect on the upsurge of interest in eunuchs and analyse the presence of eunuchs in Constantinople, from its foundation by Emperor Constantine the Great in 330 and throughout its history. The foundation of Constantinople coincided with the institutionalisation of court eunuchs in the Roman Empire, with the first well-documented cases appearing in the fourth century (e.g. Eusebius, Eutherius, Eutropius). Further, in medieval Byzantium eunuchs came to be associated with the foundation itself, being presented as instrumental in the momentous decision of Constantine. The talk explores how and why eunuchs were interwoven into the history and fabric of Constantinople.
2. CALL FOR PAPERS
CfP: Art and Architecture in Medieval and Modern Georgia: Historical and Cultural Context, Tbilisi, 25–27 November 2026
Art and Architecture in Medieval and Modern Georgia: Historical and Cultural Context - Dedicated to the 85th anniversary of George Chubinashvili Institute of History of Georgian Art (since 2006 – George Chubinashvili National Research Centre).
On the occasion of its 85th anniversary, the George Chubinashvili National Research Centre announces an international conference entitled “Art and Architecture in Medieval and Modern Georgia: Historical and Cultural Context,” to be held in Tbilisi from 25 to 27 November 2026.
The conference invites art historians, architectural historians, and scholars in related disciplines to explore the historical, cultural, and intellectual contexts of Georgian art and architecture from the medieval to the modern period. The event will be held in a hybrid format, allowing both in-person and online participation.
As an anniversary event, the conference aims to provide a broad forum for discussion and welcomes contributions addressing a wide range of topics, including (but not limited to):
formation and early development of Christian architecture
art and the cult of relics
devotional practices and the creation of sacred spaces
architecture of Georgia in the Caucasian and Middle Eastern context
Medieval patronage
Medieval cultural and artistic exchange
the place of Georgia in Global Byzantium
the emergence of Modernity
art and power in the Medieval and Modern periods
art and identity in the Medieval and Modern periods
gender in Medieval and Modern art
aspects of Georgian Modernism
art and ideology in the Soviet period
the historiography of Georgian art
contemporary challenges in the study of Georgian culture
While the conference focuses primarily on Georgia, papers addressing the art and architecture of the wider region are also welcome, particularly those that highlight Georgia’s connections and relations with neighboring countries and cultures.
Proposals for 20-minute papers should include a title, an abstract of up to 300 words, and the author’s name, institutional affiliation, and contact details. Abstracts may be submitted in English or Georgian. Please send proposals to: natsvl...@gch-centre.ge by 31 May 2026. Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their submissions by 30 June 2026.
CfP: Medieval History Graduate Workshop
We host presentations on the cultures, economies, literature, material cultures, politics, thought, religions, and reception of the medieval world, which we broadly define as the global period between c. 500 and c. 1500. We welcome interdisciplinary scholarship and encourage submissions which stretch our conception of ‘medieval’ in time or space, from late antiquity to modern reception and from Scandinavia to the Middle East and beyond, or which deal with the practice of medieval history.
These short 15–20-minute workshop papers are excellent ways to share your work, gain presentation experience, and receive constructive feedback in a supportive environment run for and by graduate students. In terms of scope, we are looking for focused studies that offer snapshots into ongoing graduate research, and particularly encourage primary source work and case studies, rather than sweeping overviews of large topics or summaries of entire dissertations/theses.
We welcome submissions from master’s and PhD students from any discipline or university, but especially encourage graduate students based in or around Cambridge to submit.
Accepted speakers will have the opportunity to be featured on our blog, Camedieval.
The Workshop meets alternate Thursdays, 4:00pm–5:30pm, with the option of virtual attendance on Microsoft Teams for audience members. In each session we usually have two 15–20-minute papers, followed by in-person socialising and refreshments.
Please send an abstract of not more than 250 words and a short bio by 17th April 2026 to cambridg...@gmail.com.
The Camedieval blog regularly puts out content and is always open for submissions.
CfP: "Shared Stories", Hamburg, 9-10 September 2027
Shared Stories, Motives, and Images between the Greek, Oriental, and Latin Worlds in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (International Conference, Hamburg, 9-10 September 2027). An International Conference organised by the DFG-ANR Project PhysioLab, 9-10 September 2027, University of Hamburg, Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, Warburgstraße 26, Hamburg
The German-French collaborative project PhysioLab, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) (2025–2028), aims to produce new editions—both digital and print—of the earliest versions of the Physiologus. Over the course of this work, it has become evident that the connections between the Latin and Christian Oriental translations are far more extensive and intricate than previously recognized. Moreover, tracing the sources and examining the literary and iconographic reception of the Physiologus has revealed complex pathways that transcend linguistic, cultural, and religious boundaries.
Stories, motifs, and images from the Physiologus circulated widely during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, contributing to the formation of a shared system of mental references despite linguistic, cultural, or religious differences. Similar patterns of large-scale, multilingual transmission—encompassing written, oral, and pictorial media—can be observed in numerous narrative traditions, whether hagiographic, biographical, fictional, or historical in nature. Studying the complex histories of these traditions challenges conventional dichotomies such as West/East, centre/periphery, religious/secular, courtly/popular. Notable examples include Barlaam and Josaphat, the Alexander Romance, the Seven Sages, the legend of Saint Pelagia, the Miracles of Mary, and the Dionysian legends, among others.
This conference seeks to bring together scholars working on such large and complex multilingual traditions of textual and pictorial narratives. We invite contributions from researchers across linguistic boundaries and disciplinary approaches—philological, historical, iconographical, literary, or digital—to critically engage with the methodological challenges posed by these traditions. By doing so, we aim to refine our understanding of the cultural history of the premodern era, characterized by its long-term, multicultural, and multilingual dynamics.
During the conference, the PhysioLab team will present the new electronic, multilingual edition of the earliest versions of the Physiologus. A selection of papers will be considered for publication, potentially in the series Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Brepols).
Submission deadline: 31 May 2026. Further information available here.
CfP: Intellectual Interaction Between Paganism and Christianity (University of Bonn, 26-27 June 2026)
It is a truism to call the Late Antique world a Christian world. The imperial families became Christian and so eventually did most of the imperial elite and also step by step most of the inhabitants of the empire. One could say Constantine’s embracing of Christianity was a turning point that led from a pagan to a Christian world. Yet the Lebenswelt of the average Late Antique person was far from being Christianised in a total sense of the word. On the contrary the remains of centuries of pagan culture were present in every part of everyday life. Of course pagans did not suddenly disappear but for a long time constituted a significant part of the inhabitants of the empire. This pagan presence challenged, provoked or inspired intellectual interaction with it. In most cases it could not simply be ignored. The ways that Christian authors dealt with it were very different: Assimilation, condemnation or reinterpretation are among the most common approaches. But some authors might not even have considered the dichotomy to be problematic and thus engaged with paganism in a casual manner even though this (at least for our conceptions) was not in accordance with their public function.
Within the scope of this postgraduate workshop we ask you to present thoughts and cases on those intellectual interactions. PhD students and recent PhD holders from all fields that study the Imperial Roman Era and Late Antiquity are welcome to apply. Chances are that you have been confronted with these discourses in your texts as well while working on your dissertation. We encourage you to send in short proposals for case-study oriented presentations (20-30 minutes) on this topic. Every presentation will be followed by a discussion on the presented case among early-career peers that will lead to a broader understanding of this complex phenomenon. Guiding questions can include but are not limited to: How and why did certain authors engage with elements of pagan culture? Were certain parts of pagan culture more likely to be embraced or rejected as part of one’s background? What was considered specifically pagan by Christians? And how did pagan authors for their part react to the rise of Christianity? How did the political or social background of our authors shape their view of the dichotomy? Is the outlined dichotomy still fruitful for analysing and interpreting Late Antique sources or is it a careless simplification that does not reflect the Lebenswelt of some of our sources?
A proposal can be sent until the 31.03.26 to Gregor Kirilov (gkir...@uni-bonn.de) or Jacob Bernitzki (jber...@uni-bonn.de). It should not exceed 500 words and must be (like the presentation itself) in English. The workshop itself will be held on the 26th and 27th of June at the University of Bonn. Further information about scheduling will be sent to all participants after the evaluation of the proposals. We aim to secure additional funding to cover travel expenses and accommodation but applicants are strongly encouraged to seek compensation from their home university.
CfP Understanding textual content of manuscripts across traditions, Hamburg, 1-2 October 2026
The Project Beta maṣāḥǝft: Manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea at the University of Hamburg (with the financial support of the Akademie der Wissenschaften Hamburg) is pleased to announce the International Conference
Describing the intellectual content of a manuscript (in any language or tradition) requires a clear strategy for addressing the textual complexity inherently present in this medium. Where do we draw the boundaries between texts, dividing the content into distinct textual units? Should a text be delimited based on its material inscription, linguistic coherence, communicative function, or interpretability? What features indicate that we are dealing with a specific textual unit? How can we consistently and clearly identify, classify, and relate textual units and layers both within and across traditions? Are all possible versions merely manifestations of a single underlying text, or does a certain degree of variance justify regarding a version as a text in its own right? How should non-literary texts transmitted through manuscripts be treated? What are the implications for a culturally and historically situated literary text when it is transmitted across regional and temporal boundaries?
In manuscript studies, these questions are not purely theoretical. Our understanding of a text or textual unit influences how we handle manuscripts in our research, how we edit and interpret their content, and how we conceptualise the cultures that produced these texts. Employing consistent approaches is crucial for creating reliable catalogue descriptions and, even more so, for establishing an authoritative list of all documented texts.
Building on experiences from (re)cataloguing manuscripts within a digital environment and from developing reliable digital text repertoires, this conference invites an interdisciplinary dialogue about the conceptual, practical, and technological implications of working with pre-modern manuscripts and texts in any language tradition.
Scholars at all stages of their academic careers are encouraged to submit abstracts addressing these questions and related topics:
The internal logic of transmitting and classifying texts and textual units across diverse written cultures;
The definitions of textual units within specific fields and how these influence cross-disciplinary and cross-boundary research;
How titles, languages, and naming conventions can respect local usage while maintaining data reusability and recognisability;
Ways in which multidisciplinary and multilingual research environments can best link traditions while respecting their internal differences;
The implications of these decisions for digital infrastructure and data management.
While the goal is not to establish a single, binding definition, we hope that the papers and discussions will foster a shared understanding that can serve as a reference point for our disciplines—or, alternatively, reveal the productive necessity of multiple, context-specific approaches. Please visit https://www.betamasaheft.uni-hamburg.de/conferences/texts2026.html for more information.
CfP: Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Conversations in Women’s, Gender and Queer Histories, University of Oxford, June 18 and 19th 2026
Venue: Rothermere American Institute, 1a S Parks Rd, OX1 3UB
Convened by the Centre for Women’s, Gender and Queer Histories (WGQ), this special symposium for Oxford Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers is an opportunity to share ‘where you are at’ in your research with our vibrant community of women’s, gender, and queer historians. It is, more broadly, an event to think about the state of play in these subdisciplines and their relationship with each other. With a flourishing Masters programme and developing cohort of DPhil students, a regular seminar and growing roster of events, a new LGBTQ+ creative fellowship and new teaching fellow in gender and queer history, a multi-disciplinary discussion series on ‘Care’, a workshop series on magazines, graduate-led networks and groups, and Chairs in the History of Sexuality and in Women’s History recently in post, this is a good moment to ask: ‘where are we at’ in our collective intellectual project?
Submissions: We invite short (200-word max) proposals and abstracts from Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers in history and cognate disciplines for: 10- or 15-minute papers; in-conversation sessions between two or three delegates; roundtables of up to six participants on what’s new on a particular topic; poster presentations; or any other session format you’d like to suggest.
These proposals can be about your own research or about the subdisciplines and their interconnections. Proposals involving more than one person should include a 200-word overview plus 2-3 sentences on the contribution or vantage point of each participant. Speakers should also submit a 1-page CV with their abstracts/proposals.
Please send these to Eszter D Kovacs w...@history.ox.ac.uk by April 13th, 10am
8th Leiden Summer School on Manuscripts from the Muslim World (17-28 August 2026)
Deadline for application: May 4th 2026
The programme offers two weeks of lectures and hands-on training, during which participants will work directly with manuscripts of their own choice from Leiden’s rich collections of Oriental manuscripts.
Since the pioneering work of scholars such as Joseph Scaliger, Jacobus Golius, and Levinus Warner, Leiden University Library has built one of the most important collections of Oriental manuscripts in Europe. The collection includes thousands of Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman manuscripts, originating not only from the historic heartlands of Islam but also from regions such as Asia, al-Andalus, and Africa.
Participants in the summer school will have full access to this exceptional collection, as well as to the research facilities and services of the university library.
This two-week summer programme is designed for Master’s students, PhD candidates, and researchers interested in working with manuscripts from the Islamicate world. Participants will gain practical experience with manuscript sources and work with the rich collections of the Leiden University Libraries Special Collections.
Further information about the programme and application procedure can be found here:
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/humanities/institute-for-area-studies/arabic-studies/summer-school
3. JOBS AND SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
College of Arts and Humanities School of Humanities Research Associate
Vacancy Reference: 192573
Salary: Grade 7, £41,064 - £46,049 per annum
We have an exciting opportunity for a Research Associate to make a leading contribution to an ongoing six-year project (“Synergy-Plague. Reconstructing the environmental, biological, and societal drivers of plague outbreaks in Eurasia between 1300 and 1900 CE”; https://www.synergy-plague.org/ ), working with Principal Investigator, Professor Philip Slavin (University of Stirling) and Leading Collaborator, Professor Samuel Cohn (University of Glasgow). The successful applicant will be based at the University of Glasgow and will be co-supervised by Professor Cohn and Professor Slavin.
The ERC Synargy-Plague Synergy project involves an international interdisciplinary team led by four PIs: Professors Slavin, Nils Stenseth, Ulf Büntgen and Florent Sebbane. The main objective of the project is to expand our understanding of the ecologies and mechanisms of plague transmission during the Second Pandemic over Eurasia and North Africa. The project is strongly interdisciplinary in character, involving a team of epidemiological modelling (Stenseth), palaeo-climatology (Büntgen), plague biology (Sebanne) and environmental history (Slavin). The project has embarked on its second year.
We are presently exploring geographic regions yet to receive their deserved scholarly attention. These include former Venetian and Genoese colonies (collectively referred to as ‘Romania’) in the western Balkans, Pelopenese, Crete, Cyprus, Crimea, Anatolia and today’s Southern Russia. In addition, we are interested in taking advantage of Venetian and Genoese notarial and commercial records in some Middle Eastern hubs (including Cairo and Damascus). The bulk of these records are preserved in the Venetian and Genoese archives (mostly, in the Archivio di Stato di Venezia and Archivio di Stato di Genova), in addition to a series of Croatian and Montenegrin archives (Dubrovnik, Kotor etc).
The successful Research Associate will be involved collecting, photographing, transcribing, collating data related to plague outbreaks from the archives in question, inputting these into an ongoing global database of plague outbreaks, and will be involved in data analysis. The successful candidate will begin research with Venetian materials (months 1-12) and should progress to Genoese, Croatian and Montenegrin archives in months 13-36.
For informal enquiries, please contact Professor Samuel Cohn, Samue...@glasgow.ac.uk or Professor Philip Slavin, Philip...@stir.ac.uk
This post is full time with funding available for up to 36 months.
For more information on the role, the project, and to apply online:
https://www.jobs.gla.ac.uk/job/research-associate-5839328
Closing date: 7 April 2026 @23:45
We believe that we can only reach our full potential through the talents of all. Equality, diversity and inclusion are at the heart of our values. Applications are particularly welcome from across our communities and in particular people from the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community, and other protected characteristics who are under-represented within the University. Read more on how the University promotes and embeds all aspects of equality and diversity within our community https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/humanresources/equalitydiversity/
We endorse the principles of Athena Swan https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/humanresources/equalitydiversity/athenaswan/ and hold bronze, silver and gold awards across the University.
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Nidanu O'Shea
DPhil in Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
Secretary, Oxford University Byzantine Society
http://oxfordbyzantinesociety.wordpress.com