Hybrid format – 24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies

Posted on March 25, 2022 by bsanacom

Via Derek Krueger, President of the USNCBS

The 24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies in Venice and Padua will be held in hybrid format, in line with all other Congress activities. This entails both in-person and remote attendance, to ensure participation even in the event of a flare up of the pandemic and in view of the international instability which is regrettably afflicting the whole of Europe.

—–

The event is fast approaching and we are witnessing a considerable interest in attending it in person after this extended period of limited mobility. Nevertheless, we expect there to be some personal as well as more general situations that make in-person attendance of the Congress in Venice and Padua impossible.

We therefore officially wish to announce that the 24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies will be held in hybrid format, in line with all other Congress activities. This entails both in-person and remote attendance, to ensure participation even in the event of a flare up of the pandemic and in view of the international instability which is regrettably afflicting the whole of Europe.

In order to confirm your participation to the Congress, whether in person or online, we kindly request you to fill in the relevant form at this link by July 1st 2022 (https://byzcongress2022.org/mode-of-participation/). Please note that the choice you make will be irrevocable.

The form must be filled in with the following information:

name, surname, email address
choice of in-person or online participation

We remind you that for organisational reasons each speaker is kindly request to upload the abstract in its final version by April 30th 2022. Please find more info at this link (https://byzcongress2022.org/abstract/).

Last but not least, we should note that all Congress activities will take place in accordance with the norms in force in Italy as regards measures for the prevention and containment of Sars-Cov-2 contagion. In light of this, we trust you will show understanding, should it become necessary to make any last-minute organisational changes.

We once again thank you for your participation – do not hesitate to get in touch, should you have any queries.

Best regards,

—

The Organizing Office
“24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies”
Venice-Padua, 22-27 August 2022

The Byzantines and the Natural World

Posted on March 25, 2022 by bsanacom

The Byzantines and the Natural World
funded by
Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung
with the opening lecture by
Professor Stavros Lazaris (Paris)
Animals in Byzantium, a comfort for humans and their souls

Program
1. Welcome (Johannes Pahlitzsch, Przemysław Marciniak)
2. Introduction (Tristan Schmidt)
3. Overview of the planned activities (Przemysław Marciniak)
4. Opening lecture

7th April 2022 (Thursday), 4 PM (Brussels time)
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86060175390?pwd=R2tjdHpVTWZzblY0RXI2RmxKamhDUT09

(Meeting: 860 6017 5390 access code: 2dqWzu)

Arbeitsbereich Byzantinistik, JGU Mainz
Institute of Literary Studies, University of Silesia
contact: przemyslaw.marciniak@us.edu.pl

Talk Announcement: Prof. Linda Safran- Byzantium at Ankara Spring 2021/2 Seminar Series (Thursday 31 March 2022)

Posted on March 25, 2022 by bsanacom

Byzantium at Ankara (a joint venture of Bilkent Department of History and Hacettepe University, Department of Art History) is happy to announce the inaugural talk of the Spring 2021/22 Seminar Series.

On Thursday 31 March 2022 (h. 18.00 Istanbul time), Prof. Linda Safran (Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto) will be delivering a talk entitled: “Beyond Books: the Diagrammatic Mode in Byzantium.”

For further info and registration, please send an email to byzantiumatankara@hotmail.com

Recording of our previous lectures can be found on our Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN6mx3xkQknph5pPwrodhrw).

ABSTRACT: Beyond books: The Diagrammatic Mode in Byzantium.

Diagrams in manuscripts are easy to recognize, if not necessarily easy to describe. This talk considers diagrams outside of manuscripts and unaccompanied by lengthy texts. Such diagrams, as well as abstract ways of thinking diagrammatically- that is, in linear and geometrical terms, in three dimensions and not just two-were more widespread in the Byzantine visual landscape than has previously been noticed. I propose that this “diagrammatic mode” played a role in public life, helping to structure the Byzantines’ understanding of time and space, demonstrate harmonious relationships, and reify τάξις.

BIO:
Linda Safran is a Research Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto. She holds a Ph.D. in History of Art from Yale University. Her research interests are Byzantine and Mediterranean art and architecture, medieval studies, cultural history, material culture studies, archaeology of Southern Italy, Art History, and Jewish Art History.

Recent and forthcoming publications include: “La mise-en-page dei testi pubblici nel Salento medievale,” in “Gli uomini e le lettere: personaggi, testi e contesti della Terra d’Otranto di cultura bizantina,” ed. Alessandro Capone, special issue, Rudiae: Ricerche sul mondo classico, n.s. 3 (2017)[2018], 271-90; “Two Classrooms in China” (with Adam S. Cohen), Common Knowledge 24, no. 3 [“Symposium: In the Humanities Classroom, Part 2,” ed. Caroline Walker Bynum] (2018): 375-88; “Remembering the Jewish Dead in Medieval Apulia and Basilicata,” in Letters in the Dust, Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Culture and Religion, ed. Leonard Rutgers and Ortal-Paz Saar (Leuven: Peeters, 2020); “Four Inscriptions from Salento,” in Medieval Texts on Byzantine Art and Aesthetics, vol. 3, From Alexios I Komnenos to the Rise of Hesychasm (1081-ca. 1330), ed. Charles Barber and Foteini Spingou (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020); and “A Prolegomenon to Byzantine Diagrams,” in Visualization of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages, ed. Marcia Kupfer, Adam S. Cohen, and J. H. Chajes (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020).

Mary Jaharis Center Lectures: April 7 & April 12

Posted on March 25, 2022 by bsanacom

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce two upcoming lectures:

Thursday, April 7, 2022 | 5:00 pm (EDT, UTC -4) | Zoom
Disentangling Alchemy
Alexandre Roberts, University of Southern California

Alexandre Roberts considers alchemy within the intellectual and artisanal activity of western Afro-Eurasia in the premodern period.

Advance registration required. Register: https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/disentangling-alchemy

Sponsored by the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture and Harvard University Standing Committee on Medieval Studies.

Tuesday, April 12, 2022 | 12:00 pm (EDT, UTC -4) | Zoom
The Rediscovery of the Church of the East in the Arabian Gulf
Robert Carter, Qatar Museums

Robert Carter discusses the rediscovery of the Church of the East in the Gulf during the mid-20th century.

Advance registration required. Register: https://eastofbyzantium.org/upcoming-events/

An East of Byzantium lecture. East of Byzantium is a partnership between the Arthur H. Dadian and Ara Oztemel Chair of Armenian Art at Tufts University and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture that explores the cultures of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine empire in the late antique and medieval periods.

Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.

TGHS Call for Papers: Encounters and Exchanges in a Global Past, Oxford, 25 June 2022

Posted on March 25, 2022 by bsanacom

TGHS Postgraduate Conference Call for Papers:

Encounters and Exchanges in a Global Past

The Oxford Transnational and Global History Seminar is inviting submissions for a postgraduate conference, Saturday 25 June, 2022. The conference will be held in person in the Oxford History Faculty.

We welcome submissions on the theme ‘Encounters and Exchanges in a Global Past.’ We will explore the ways in which encounters and exchanges were experienced in the near and distant past. Despite the recent proliferation of frameworks for understanding contact and the exchange of goods, ideas and biota that accompanied it, contact is rarely considered from a truly global perspective that spans millennia, continents and disciplines.

We welcome interdisciplinary submissions relating to exchanges across time and space. We are particularly interested in submissions on the infrastructure that underlay encounters and exchanges, such as technology and ideology; multi-scalar interaction; the role of translation in contact; the environmental history of encounters and exchanges.

Sessions will consist of 20 minute papers with time for questions and discussion.

Interested postgraduates should send a 400-word abstract and brief biography to oxfordtghs@gmail.com

Submission deadline: 1 May 2022

The “Fresco-Hunting” Photo Research Expedition to Medieval Balkan Churches

Posted on March 25, 2022 by bsanacom

The “Fresco-Hunting” Photo Research Expedition to Medieval Balkan Churches provides a unique opportunity for students and volunteers to take part in an expedition to document abandoned medieval churches/chapels and their frescos in western Bulgaria, and to visit many other Christian Orthodox churches, monasteries, museums and archaeological sites in Sofia and western Bulgaria.

The field school is designed for students and young specialists in heritage, archaeology and conservation as well as artists, but we also welcome anyone interested in:

medieval civilization in Southeastern Europe (especially Byzantine and Christian Orthodox architecture, arts and iconography during the late medieval period: 13th to 17th centuries)
digital photography
documentation of ecclesiastic architecture and frescos
cultural heritage preservation
travel to significant heritage sites in western Bulgaria.

Dates: 21 May – 4 June 2022

For more information and to apply: https://www.bhfieldschool.org/program/medieval-fresco-photo-expedition

Academic credits available through our partner New Bulgarian University

Places of Illness, Spaces for Healing:The Built Environment of Healthcare in Anatolia Through the Ages

Posted on March 24, 2022 by bsanacom

Places of Illness, Spaces for Healing:The Built Environment of Healthcare in Anatolia Through the Ages

25 March 2022, 09:00-17:30 (GMT +03:00, Turkey time)

The events of the 2019-2022 pandemic, including quarantining and the hospitalization of millions, have made us all think more consciously about how people of the past dealt with illness and health. From Classical Antiquity to the modern era, a variety of sites and spaces in Anatolia and its neighboring areas formed the focus of healing and illness, often building on earlier traditions of medical practices, illness, and healthcare architecture. Based on these ideas, organized in collaboration with the Koç University Medical and Health Humanities Initiative, and convened by Lucienne Thys-Şenocak and Inge Uytterhoeven, the 16th International ANAMED Annual Symposium will explore diverse archaeological sites, architecture, built heritage, landscapes, locations, and spaces where healing, healthcare, and medicine have been practiced in Anatolia and its broader regional context.

ARAM Conference on Melkite Christianity, 11-13 July 2022

Posted on March 24, 2022 by bsanacom

ARAM Society for Syro-Mesopotamian Studies is organizing its Fifty First International Conference on Melkite Christianity (the Patriarchates of Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria) and the Archaeology of Byzantine Monasteries and Churches in the Levant, to be held at the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford, on 11th – 13th July 2022.

The conference will start on Monday 11th July at 9pm, finishing on Wednesday 13th July at 7pm. Each speaker’s paper is limited to 45 minutes, with an additional 15 minutes for discussion. All papers given at the conference will be considered for publication in a future edition of the ARAM Periodical, subject to editorial review. If you wish to participate in the conference, please contact our Oxford address: ARAM, the Oriental Institute, Oxford University, Pusey Lane, Oxford OX1 2LE, England. Tel. 01865-514041 Email: aram@orinst.ox.ac.uk

CfP: ‘Textual Cultures in Contact’

Posted on March 24, 2022 by bsanacom

The Early Text Cultures research group based at the University of Oxford invites papers for its Trinity Term (May-June) research seminar on ‘Textual Cultures in Contact’, which will bring together scholars whose research focus is the interactions between pre-modern textual cultures.  Through sessions  comprising  paired  papers,  this seminar series will enable  participants to gain fresh perspectives on the nature of  ‘contact’  among textual cultures,  and on  the affordances and limitations of their fields’ methods and approaches to  the topic.

Subjects and case studies might include:

• Texts that embed or are shaped by intercultural textual or literary interaction

• Texts that consciously reflect on that type of interaction (e.g. translations, adaptations, ancient or modern ethnographic accounts).

• Histories of terminology and theoretical frameworks used to  conceptualise  ‘contact’ between textual cultures

• Investigations into the material, social and intellectual conditions that determined, and were shaped by, these interactions

• Examinations of the power relationships (political or otherwise) implicit in cross-cultural  interactions

If you would like to present a 20-minute paper at one of the sessions, please send an abstract of no more than 250 words to  earlytextcultures@humanities.ox.ac.uk by Monday 11 April. Papers by early-career and graduate researchers are particularly welcome. The seminar will be held in a hybrid form, taking place both in Oxford and on Zoom.

To be added to our mailing list, please email earlytextcultures@humanities.ox.ac.uk.

EuQu International Workshop – The Holy Book of the Ishmaelites in the World of Eastern Christianity

Posted on March 24, 2022 by bsanacom

International Workshop – The Holy Book of the Ishmaelites in the World of Eastern Christianity

May 11-12, 2022 | University of Copenhagen

The Holy Book of the Ishmaelites was the name commonly used by Eastern Christians of various traditions to refer to the Qur’an. Since the emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity, Eastern Christians speaking Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopic, Georgian, Greek, Church Slavonic, Russian and Syriac came in contact with Islam and its Holy Scripture. From the Mediterranean lands to Russia via the Balkans, Anatolia and Caucasus, the experience of Eastern Christians with their Muslim neighbors and/or rulers was shaped by diverse multicultural and multiconfessional contexts in which their approach to the Qur’an played a significant role in defining religious identity and the dynamics of communal life.

This international workshop will explore how Eastern Christians engaged with the Qur’an and its Islamic interpretations from the medieval period until the end of the eighteenth century. Bringing together different religious traditions, one of the main scopes of the workshop is to build a platform of discussion between scholars working with source material from Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Georgian, Greek, Church Slavonic, Russian and Syriac contexts, with a focus on how these milieus shaped Eastern Christian responses to Islam and its Holy Scripture.

How did texts on Islam and Qur’an circulate within groups and networks? How did they cross confessional boundaries? Who were their authors and intended audiences? These and similar questions will guide the discussions, and will generate – we hope – new debates for the entangled history and cross-cultural history of the Eastern Christian communities from the medieval to the dawn of modernity.

Read the program:
https://euqu.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Event-converti-compresse.pdf