OxByzList: Trinity Week 6 Oxford Listings, 31 May - 6 June
Oxford University Byzantine Society
Dear all,
Reminder that the OUBS elections are on Thursday, 4th of June at 15:00, in the First Floor Seminar Room at the Ioannou! We must be at quorum for the elections to take place. Please come! If you cannot attend in person, then please send us an email and we can make provisions for you to attend and vote online. Also, the position of Secretary is still available, so please do reach out to us if you are interested.
Now, let's get into the listings for week 6, and please note some room changes on Tuesday and Wednesday. As always, please contact us if there are any events you would like to share with the OUBS.
Monday
01/06/2026, 16:30 - Robert Beddard Room, Oriel College, Oriel Square, OX1 4EW
Patristics Research Seminar - Zachary Oliver (Oxford): Between Orthodoxy and Empire: Eὐσέβεια as a Political Virtue in the Thought of St Gregory of Nazianzus
01/06/2026, 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 - Guy Geltner (Monash University): The Workers’ View: An Environmental Approach to Premodern Public Health
01/06/2026, 18:00 - House of SS Gregory and Macrina, 1 Canterbury Road, OX2 6LU
Edgar Wind Society for the History of Art - Edgar Wind Society & Sir Richard Temple: Andrei Rublev & the Hesychastic Mysteries of Byzantium
The Edgar Wind Society for the History of Art will be hosting a discussion with Sir Richard Temple, founder of The Temple Gallery in London. The gallery was founded in 1959, and has sold icons to a huge range of public and private collectors, including to the British Museum and the Louvre. Richard Temple himself has been referred to as one of the 'foremost' icon dealers in Europe by no less a luminary than Kurt Weitzmann.
The talk will be wide-ranging, touching on Andrei Rublev, hesychasm, and some of Richard's personal history collecting and selling icons. It is completely free, and will be held at the House of St Gregory and St Macrina, not too far from St. Anthony's College and the Maison Française. The discussion will commence at 6pm, followed by refreshments afterwards.
More info: https://fixr.co/event/andrei-rublev-the-hesychastic-mysteries-of-byzanti-tickets-462890134
Or people can just email the EWS address: wind.s...@googlemail.com
Tuesday
02/06/2026, 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.
02/06/2026, 14:00 - Catherine Lewis Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Institute, Walton Street Oxford, OX1 2HG
Seminar on Jewish History and Literature - Itai Kagan (Oxford): “The Hasmonean Megillah: Origins and Transformations of the Antiochus Scroll”
In order to participate in this lecture via Zoom, please register at this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/i5FpFTMkRmSjM0ZjMTJ6uw
02/06/2026, 16:00 - Morris 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.
02/06/2026, 17:00 - Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Pusey Lane, OX1 2LE
Khalili Research Centre and the Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies - Johannes Niehoff-Panagiotidis (Freie Universität Berlin): Beyond Codex Sinaiticus: Documentary Evidence about Mount Sinai
Wednesday
03/06/2026, 12:15 - Lecture Room, Campion Hall, OX1 1QS
Syriac Lunch Seminar - Adam Wilcox: Thou Art a Priest Forever: Ascension and Heavenly Institution in East Syriac Liturgical Tradition
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.
03/06/2026, 15:15 - Kloppenburg Room at the Cohen Quad, Walton Street, Oxford OX1 2HE
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.
03/06/2026, 17:00 - Lecture Theatre, Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, 66 St Giles’, OX1 3LU
Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar - Saun Tougher (Cardiff): Minor Characters? Other Eunuchs in Byzantine Historiography of the Tenth Century
Online Teams link here.
Thursday
04/06/2026, 09:00 - Gillis Lecture Theatre, Balliol College, Broad Street, OX1 3BJ
Transmitting and Preserving Languages in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean. Second Workshop.
This one-day workshop explores how and why languages were taught, learned, and sustained across the diverse and shifting socio-cultural landscapes of the late medieval and early modern Mediterranean. Integrating history with literary studies and historical sociolinguistics and adopting a comparative and cross-disciplinary perspective, the workshop aims to identify shared trends, comparable elements, and distinctive features in language learning and transmission. This approach offers a renewed perspective on the interconnected Mediterranean world-a region where multilingualism, mobility, and intercultural exchange were and are central to daily life. The impact of these dynamics on language teaching, preservation, and use has often been underestimated.
The event will include dedicated time for discussion and reflection, allowing participants to engage in a broader conversation about language and cultural transmission. At its core, the workshop presents the medieval and early modern Mediterranean as a space of teaching, learning, and multilingual exchange.
Convenors: Daniel Gallaher and Ugo Mondini
Speakers: Marina Bazzani (University of Oxford); Valentina Calzolari (University of Geneva); Benedetta Contin (Austrian Academy of Sciences); Andrea Cuomo (Ghent University); Karen Hamada (University of Tokyo); Anthony Kaldellis (University of Chicago); Markéta Kulhánková (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic).
Chairs: Stratis Papaioannou, Alice Rio, and Theo Maarten van Lint.
To register for online attendance, please contact Ugo Mondini at ugo.m...@mod-lanes.ox.ac.uk
This event is co-sponsored by the Balliol Interdisciplinary Institute (BII), the John Fell Fund (TORCH Network Poetry in the Medieval World), the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), the Modern Greek Studies Association (MGSA), and the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research (OCBR).
04/06/2026, 17:00 - Dorfman Centre, St Peter’s College, New Inn Hall Street, OX1 2DL
After Roman and Further East Seminar - Joanna Wegner (Warsaw): Egyptian Clerics outside the Church: Social and Economic Status of the Clergy in the Fourth–Eighth Century
04/06/2026, 17:15 - KRC Lecture Room, Khalili Research Centre, 3 St John St, OX1 2LJ
Khalili Research Seminar - Emine Fetvaci (Boston College): Portrait as Biography at the Ottoman Court: the Case of Murad III (r. 1574-95)
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Nidanu O'Shea
DPhil in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Secretary, Oxford University Byzantine Society
http://oxfordbyzantinesociety.wordpress.com