Dear BSANA members,
Happy New Year!
Thank you to everyone who joined us at our recent, hybrid BSC!
We had 284 participants — 141 in person, and 143 remote, which is a promisingly robust attendance. In addition to our North American attendees, we had participants join us remotely from 17 countries. We are grateful to Betsy Bolman and her crew at Case Western Reserve and the Cleveland Museum, who gave us such a gracious welcome and a seamless, hybrid conference. Particular thanks go to Galina Tirnanic and the Program Committee for putting together a complex puzzle of in-person and remote speakers.
We continue to be grateful to the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, who sponsored three panels geared toward our graduate and early career members, and two sessions.
Four new Board Members were elected at the Saturday lunch: Christina Christoforatou, Baruch College, CUNY; Alice Lynn McMichael, Michigan State University; Jordan Pickett, University of Georgia; and Shaun Tougher, Cardiff University. We welcome them, and thank the members who cycled off the Board this year for their service: Ben Anderson, Hannah Ewing, Meredith Riedel, Alexander Riehle.
A Post-Conference Survey has just been issued and I urge you all to respond—your input helps us to shape our conferences and our policies to better suit your needs.
On Saturday the new Board convened to elect new officers. We are building on the knowledge gained during the pandemic, with Alice Sullivan continuing as Secretary, Brad Hostetler as Communications Officer, Byron MacDougall as Vice President, and Lynn Jones as President. Ruma Salhi has agreed to serve as Treasurer, and we thank Tia Kolbaba, who is stepping down after two years. Please check the website, bsana.net, for the emails of our Executive Board.
We look forward to our next conference, November.3-6, 2022, in Los Angeles. Our hosts are Sharon Gerstel and Zrinka Stahuljak, the CMRS Center for Early Global Studies, the UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture, and the Pourdavoud Center for the Study of the Iranian World. We hope to see you there!
We also look forward to seeing many of you at the International Congress of Byzantine Studies this summer! Full updates can be found via the link on BSANA’s website, bsana.net.
In addition to the new website, we now have a lively social media presence. Find us, and follow us, @bsanabsc on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter! Please submit any news to bsana.communications@gmail.com for posting on the listserv and website. If you are not receiving listserv announcements, please sign up. Send an email requesting to join to bsana.communications@gmail.com.
On behalf of the Board, I send our best wishes to you all,
Lynn Jones
President, BSANA
bsana.president@gmail.com