Recent work on subjecthood and patronage in Byzantine studies has shown the import of formulas and models, especially in light of liturgical and literary ones, for understanding and presenting the self. At the same time, theories of queerness and intersectionality have been used to bring greater awareness to previously overlooked medieval identities. Drawing on these discourses, this panel revisits traditional sites of self-presentation, such as seals, donation images, and objects of commemoration to ask how these issues were visualized. How did patrons with marginal or liminal identities represent themselves? Or why would a patron choose to represent themselves via a figure whose identity did not fit neatly into societally defined categories? For example, why would a man choose an angel as his emblem? At stake is how we recognize and interpret medieval self-identification. Speakers are encouraged to address de-centered subjects, either patrons or iconographies, and ask how the arena of self-presentation can aid our understanding of what liminal and marginal meant to medieval patrons and viewers. Deadline for Submissions: Wednesday, September 15, 2021.
This virtual conference, which will take place on September 17–18, 2021, gathers diverse scholars from across the globe whose research touches on all aspects of Syriac iconography and visual culture in any geographic region from late antiquity throughout the Middle Ages, to roughly 1400 C.E. It is structured around roundtable workshop sessions for pre-circulated papers, disseminated to registered participants approximately one month in advance. The conference is hosted by the Department of Art & Archaeology at Princeton University, with additional support from the Committee for the Study of Late Antiquity (CSLA) and the Center for Collaborative History (CCH).
Symposium on the Paris Psalter (BnF gr. 139), July 2-3, 2021. Registration is compulsory before June 30. The link to the videoconference will be sent the day prior to the event. Click on the link for full program details.
To encourage the integration of Byzantine studies within the scholarly community and medieval studies in particular, the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture seeks proposals for a Mary Jaharis Center sponsored session at the 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, May 9–14, 2022. We invite session proposals on any topic relevant to Byzantine studies. Session proposals must be submitted through the Mary Jaharis Center website. The deadline for submission is May 18, 2021.
Date: April 16-17, 2021 at 9am EDT
The famous adage that history is written by the victors may have become a truism, but the voices of conquered people have never been fully silenced—rather, we may not have been interested in hearing them. All too often, historiography (by no means limited to Byzantine studies) has focused on great-man histories, impersonal studies of societies, or the “longue durée,” all modes that diminish the importance of subjective individual experiences of people who were not great or who were not men.
This symposium therefore aims to refocus the collective scholarly gaze of Byzantinists away from the victors in war and toward the vanquished; away from heroes and rulers and toward victims and casualties; away from the political, economic, historical, and social causes of war and toward the personal and subjective experience of it; away from the insistence of dominant voices and toward the recuperation of marginalized ones.
Bringing together twelve specialists in literature, history, art history, and contemporary cultural theory, this symposium seeks to better understand both how Byzantines themselves understood being conquered and, as importantly, what being conquered in Byzantium can mean for us now.
The conference will take place via Zoom on 22nd and 23rd April 2021 (British Summer Time).
The deadlines for Free Communications and Posters (April 15), Thematic Sessions for Free Communications (April 15), Round Tables (May 15), and Plenary Sessions (May 15) for the 24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies (Venice – Padua, 22-27 August 2022) are approaching. Please visit the Congress website for more information.
Aquafauna has recently been the topic of several conferences and publications focusing on zoological knowledge, its transmission, and transformation. Our workshop aims to investigate the imagery of aquatic animals in literature, their symbolism, their metaphorical use, and widespread views and misconceptions about such animals. We ask for proposals for papers looking at the period between ca. 500 and 1500 from a broader perspective, trying to understand how aquatic animals made their way into literature, oral traditions, proverbs, idioms, and art. Proposals due by April 15. The workshop will take place online (via the ZOOM platform) September 27-28, 2021.
School of History and Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
The Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies (CEMS) at Central European University (Vienna/Budapest) is pleased to announce the 7th International Graduate Conference on “Materiality in the Eastern Mediterranean World”, Vienna, 28-29 May 2021 (ONLINE). The conference provides a forum for graduate and advanced undergraduate students working on the Eastern Mediterranean to present their current research, exchange ideas, and develop scholarly networks.
Application deadline: April 5