New Bodies of Evidence: Corporeality in Byzantine Culture (Oxford, 2018)

Journée d’étude

New Bodies of Evidence: Corporeality in Byzantine Culture

21 avril 2018
Maison française d’Oxford

Présentation

Program

9 – 9:10 Opening words – Adele Curness and Lilyana Yordanova

Session 1 : Body in Space

9:10 – 9:40 Pierre Charrey (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes – Université PSL Paris Sciences et Lettres), Giving Body to the City: A Semiotic of Imperial Bodies in Early Byzantine Material culture.

9:40 – 10:10 Charlotte Munglani (University of Oxford) – Entering the male sphere: a study of cross-dressing female saints.

10.10-10:30 AM Coffee break

Session 2 : Mark of identity

10:30 – 11:00 Emily Everest-Phillips (University of Oxford) – Iranian Identity After Iran: Representations of the Last Sassanians in T’ang China.

11:00 – 11:30 Meric Ozolcer (University of Oxford) – Byzantine with a Western Twist: Rethinking the Imperial Imagery of Norman Sicily.

11:30 – 12:00 Benoit Cantet (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) – Voices of the Dead Bodies. A Social Hierarchy among Corpses.

12:00- 1:30 Lunch break

Session 3 : Instrument of Crime

1:30 – 2:00 Chrysavgi Athanasiou (Université Paris Sorbonne) – A Shattered Body for an Invisible Soul. Penal Mutilation in Middle Byzantine Society.

2:00 – 2:30 Romain Goudjil (Université Paris Sorbonne) – Gregory II of Cyprus and Phrangopoulos the Long-haired: Visions of the Body, Visions of the Crime in Three Letters of the Patriarch of Constantinople.

2:30 – 3:00 Lilyana Yordanova (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes – Université PSL Paris Sciences et Lettres) – Human Bodies, Angelic Powers: How to Deal with Nature in Religious Context?

3:00 – 3:20 Coffee break

Session 4 : Vulnerability

3:20 – 3:50 Maria Rukavichnikova (University of Oxford) – In Sickness and in Health: the Body of the Emperor in Nikephoros Gregoras’ Roman History.

3:50 – 4:20 Alasdair Grant (University of Oxford) – The Captive Body in Byzantium.

4:20 – 6:00 Discussion and concluding remarks.

 

Comité d’organisation

Lilyana Yordanova, Milan Vukašinović, Pierre Charrey – Association des étudiants du monde byzantin
Adele Curness – Oxford University Byzantine Society
Vivien Prigent – Maison française d’Oxford, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

 

Call for Papers – OUBS Graduate Conference February 22-23 2019, University of Oxford

Call for Papers – OUBS Graduate Conference February 22-23 2019, University of Oxford

« Contested Heritage: adaptation, restoration and innovation in the Late Antique and Byzantine world », Oxford University Byzantine Society, 22-23 February 2019, History Faculty, Oxford.

 

Byzantines considered themselves the legitimate heirs of the ancient world, a title they passionately defended against emerging empires east and west that also claimed hereditary rights to the Graeco-Roman past. From the fostering of cultural, scientific, and literary revivals and the commissioning of projects that used a well-established artistic and architectural vocabulary to the collection, conservation and display of consecrated ancient artefacts, anachronism was a powerful political and cultural tool, frequently used to build analogies with either past prosperity or a divine eternity. In addition, the use of deliberate archaism in literary forms and language served as both a demonstration of classical learning and elite status. Especially in Constantinople, ceremonial practices not only invited the participants to experience past events as if they were present, but also processed through consecrated landmarks from different historical periods – merging perception of space and time in a single, collective experience. Nevertheless, literary sources, such as the Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai, reveal that Byzantines sometimes had only a limited understanding of their own history and urban heritage. They compensate with interpretations, based on oral tradition and observation that often endowed ancient architectural remains and statues with a contemporary relevance. Subsequently this interpretation of the past was actively reshaped to fit contemporary worldviews. Lastly, extensive reuse of ancient material dominates our perception of Byzantium. Innovative aspects of its cultural output therefore often lie unnoticed and are deserving of greater scholarly attention.

Including contributions on political, social, literary, architectural and artistic history, and covering geographical areas throughout the central and eastern Mediterranean and beyond, this conference aims to provide a kaleidoscopic view of how cultural heritage was constructed, perceived and maintained in Late Antiquity and Byzantium. To that end, we encourage submissions from all graduate students and young researchers, encompassing, but not limited to, the following themes:

  • Literary works: stylistic imitation, adaptation and innovation in form and function of narrative sources and other literary production, as well as incorporation of older texts, historiographical traditions and archaiologia.
  • Manuscripts: scribal habits, palimpsests, marginal comments, illustrations and other decorative elements.
  • Architecture and urbanism: repurposing, adaptation and restoration of buildings and sites, architectural innovation and symbolism, monumentality, genius loci, use of spolia.
  • Religious objects: translation of relics, liturgical equipment, and vestments.
  • Ceremonial practice: religious processions, triumphs, adventus.
  • New aesthetics, especially in the reuse of old material.
  • Sculpture: interpretation and repurposing of ancient statues.
  • Epigraphy: textual content, form and style, use and location.
  • Mosaics: departures from classical and late antique mosaics, reuse of materials and reinterpretation of existing compositions.
  • Numismatics: reuse, adaption, or creation of imagery or types.
  • Comparative perspectives of the above elsewhere, in opposition or concordance with practices in Byzantium.
  • The past as a framework for political, legal and economic discourse.
  • Contemporary reaction to innovation, both overt and when disguised as restoration.

Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words, along with a short academic biography in the third person, to the Oxford University Byzantine Society at byzantine.society@gmail.com by Friday, 23rd November 2018.

Papers should be 20 minutes in length and may be delivered in English or French.

As with previous conferences, there will be a publication of selected papers, chosen and reviewed by specialists from the University of Oxford in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies. Speakers wishing to have their papers considered for publication should try to be as close to the theme as possible in their abstract and paper. Nevertheless, all submissions are warmly invited.

Appel à contribution – OUBS’ 18th International Graduate Conference

Call for Papers

 Trends and Turning-Points: Constructing the Late Antique and Byzantine World (c. 300 – c. 1500)

 The Oxford University Byzantine Society’s 18th International Graduate Conference

26th – 27th February 2016, University of Oxford

Spanning more than a millennium in time, ranging from the Atlantic to Iran, and including a vast array of polities, social groups, and cultural moments, the Late Antique and Byzantine world is, if nothing else, complicated and varied. Despite Gibbon’s famous attempt to reduce it to a single trend, the Late Antique and Byzantine world refuses to be simplified.

This conference aims to provide a platform to identify, discuss and debate the major trends and turning-points in the Late Antique and Byzantine world. Postgraduate scholars might choose to examine trends and turning-points on their own terms or to reflect critically on the limitations and blind-spots of our discipline, questioning the ways in which medieval Romans, their contemporaries and modern scholars have gone about constructing this past. We are calling for papers which explore all types of trends and turning-points in all fields of Late Antique and Byzantine studies. Papers might address problems such as:

  • Trends in numismatic production and design
  • From Late Antiquity to Byzantium, turning-point or trend?
  • Complexity and new approaches to constructing the past
  • Archaeological trends in conflict with historical narratives
  • Economics with or without trends?
  • Religious discourse as turning-point or trend
  • Paradigmatic ‘trends’ of growth and decline
  • ‘Great’ battles or the deaths of emperors as turning-points
  • Constructing turning-points and trends in modern academic writing

Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words, along with a short academic biography in the third person, to the Oxford University Byzantine Society at byzantine.society@gmail.com by Friday, 27th November 2015. Papers should be 20 minutes in length, and should be delivered in English or French.

As with our previous conferences, there will be a publication of selected on-theme and inter-related papers, chosen and reviewed by specialist readers from the University of Oxford’s Late Antique and Byzantine Studies research centres. Any speakers wishing to have their papers considered for publication should try to be as on-theme as possible in their abstract and paper. Nevertheless, all submissions are warmly invited.

Further information will be made available on the appropriate page of the OUBS website.

Call for papers (.pdf).