OxByzList: Trinity Week 5 Oxford Listings, 24 - 30 May
Oxford University Byzantine Society
Monday
25/05/2026, 16:30 - Robert Beddard Room, Oriel College, Oriel Square, OX1 4EW
Patristics Research Seminar - Master’s presentations
25/05/2026, 17:00 - Wharton Room, All Souls College, High St, OX1 4AL; for Teams access join group “Medieval History Research Seminar” (team code rmppucs)
Medieval History Research Seminar - Julia Hillner (University of Bonn): The Marrying Kind: How Late Roman Emperors Chose Their Wives
Tuesday
26/05/2026, 13:00 - First Floor Seminar Room, Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, 66 St Giles’, OX1 3LU
Byzantine Epistles and Prosopography: Mapping the Lost Byzantine Generations of the Thirteenth Century
The fragmentation of Byzantium into a multitude of states from 1204 and until the Palaiologan reconquest of 1261 represents a terra incognita for current prosopographies of Byzantium. Outside of the chronological coverage of both the Prosopography of the Byzantine World (PBW) and the Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit (PLP) research initiatives, these two/three generations of Byzantine society are not detailed in any currently published database.
The information to connect the two established research tools lies in the vast and often overlooked corpora of some 500 letters produced in the thirteenth-century Balkans. These texts detail how peoples navigated a liminal life between the Byzantine successor-states, Latin Crusaders, and Slavonic-speaking powers. Often demonstrating the survival or reconstitution of imperial institutions and offices beyond the collapse of central authority, this seminar series is designed as a means to read these letters. The focus will be on identifying the individuals either written to or described, and placing them within a chronological and geographical window.
With the aid of digital mapping and database management, these individuals can be brought to light and contextualised and a black hole of digital humanities in Byzantium slowly filled. We will be working initially on the dossier of Demetrios Chomatenos, Archbishop of Ohrid (1216–1236), foremost legal mind of his day.
All welcome. Interested participants should contact Nathan Websdale at nathan....@history.ox.ac.uk.
26/05/2026, 14:00 - Catherine Lewis Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Institute, Walton Street Oxford, OX1 2HG
Seminar on Jewish History and Literature - Lucia Prauscello (Oxford/All Souls): “‘Fiery grief’? The semantics of πυρόω in three inscriptions from Leontopolis (JIGRE 32, 37 and 83), the Septuagint and Paul”
In order to participate in this lecture via Zoom, please register at this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/8GSesbl0Se2zj196pBhGZQ
26/05/2026, 16:00 - Rector’s Drawing Room, Exeter College, Turl Street, OX1 3DP
Byzantine Literature Lectures - Stratis Papaioannou (Oxford): “The View from the Margins: Byzantine Literature of the Provinces (9th to 13th century)"
No knowledge of Greek is required.
Topics:
May 5: Syro-Palestine, Constantinople, Italy I: Saints at the Limits
May 12: Syro-Palestine, Constantinople, Italy II: Rite and Sacred Song
May 19: Monastic Networks: Mt. Athos and Mar Saba
May 26: Provincial Portraits: Cappadocia, Antioch, Paphos, and Trebizond
June 2: The “Western” Frontier: Sicily, Southern Italy, and Learned Literature
For info, contact: stratis.p...@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk.
27/06/2026, 17:00 - Online via Teams, link here.
Oxford University Numismatic Society - Evangeline Markou (National Hellenic Research Foundation): Title TBA
26/06/2026, 17:15 - Memorial Room, Queen’s College, High Street, OX1 4AW
Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures - Gunnar Seelentag (Hannover & Münster): Monumentalising Norms, not Names: Cartelisation and Colossality in Archaic Crete
Wednesday
27/05/2026, 12:15 - Lecture Room, Campion Hall, OX1 1QS
Syriac Lunch Seminar - David Taylor: Women in Ephrem the Syrian's Prose Commentaries on Genesis and Exodus
Participation is open to graduate students and postdoctoral researchers from all academic fields and is by invitation. Those interested in attending are kindly asked to contact Katherine Painter (katherin...@theology.ox.ac.uk) by the Sunday prior to the date(s) they wish to attend so that complementary lunch can be provided.
This seminar is made possible by the generous sponsorship of Campion Hall and the Dolabani Fund for Syriac Studies.
27/05/2026, 15:15 - Rector’s Drawing Room, Exeter College, Turl Street, OX1 3DP
Byzantine Text Seminar - Stratis Papaioannou (Oxford): Readings from a variety of genres and texts (4th-15th c.)
For info, contact: stratis.p...@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk.
27/05/2026, 17:00 - Lecture Theatre, Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, 66 St Giles’, OX1 3LU
Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar - Alessandra Bucossi (Venice): The Komnenian Panoplies between Religious Polemic and Political Self-Defence
Online Teams link here.
27/05/2026, 17:00 - Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, Marston Road, OX3 0EE
Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies - Stella Panayotava (Royal Librarian): Islamic Manuscripts in the Royal Library
Thursday
28/05/2026, 17:00 - Dorfman Centre, St Peter’s College, New Inn Hall Street OX1 2DL
After Roman and Further East Seminar - Yael Kremer (Oxford): A Society in Search of a Holy Mother: Female Sanctity in Late Ancient Christian Mesopotamia
28/05/2026, 17:15 - Memorial Room, Queen’s College, High Street, OX1 4AW
Global Manuscript and Text Cultures Seminars - Lauren Dogaer (Univ, Oxford): How the Greek Text Culture Has Shapen Modern Views of Ptolemaic Egyptian Priests;
Fergus Bovill (Merton, Oxford): Rebuilding the Medieval, Preserving the 19th Century: Littifredi Corbizzi, JOhann Anton Ramboux, and the Making and Breaking of a Choirbook in Gubbio
28/05/2026, 17:15 - KRC Lecture Room, Khalili Research Centre, 3 St John St, OX1 2LJ
Khalili Research Seminar - Margaret Squires (Ashmolean Museum): Woven Together: Carpets and Architecture in Safavid Iran
28/05/2026, 18:00 - Online
Oxford Interfaith Forum - Andrew Louth (Durham): The Philokalia: A Selection, in conversation with Sebastian Brock
The Philokalia is the most influential book in the recent history of the Orthodox Church, aside from the Bible. It is an anthology of thirty-six spiritual texts written between the fourth and fifteenth centuries by the masters of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, tracing a continuous tradition of the prayer of the heart, or hesychasm, in which the Jesus Prayer plays a growing role, from Evagrios of Pontos to Gregory Palamas. First published in Greek in 1782, and revered for offering a rich tapestry of wisdom on the path to union with God, the texts, largely of monastic origin, serve as a guide to lay people as well as monks in their pursuit of contemplative prayer, ‘inner asceticism’, and the purification of the soul.
MORE DETAILS AND REGISTRATION: https://oxfordinterfaithforum.org/thematic-international-interfaith-reading-groups/eastern-christianity-in-interfaith-contexts/the-philokalia-a-selection/
All welcome.
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Nidanu O'Shea
DPhil in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Secretary, Oxford University Byzantine Society
http://oxfordbyzantinesociety.wordpress.com