Byzantium & Friends

A conversation with Beth Digeser (University of California, Santa Barbara) about pedagogy, specifically about what we are hoping to accomplish by teaching Roman history. We talk about the limits of "influence" as a justification for it and the various ways that Rome is continually reinvented and made to speak to present concerns, from "Global Rome" to the special challenges posed by the world of late antiquity. Beth's research focuses on the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine and so she looks in both directions of Roman history, forward and backwards, from there.

A conversation with Alessandra Bucossi (Ca' Foscari University of Venice) and Niccolò Zorzi (University of Padua) on three heresiological texts of the twelfth century, the challenges of publishing and studying them, and how their main concerns can be presented in a museum exhibition. Our discussion is followed by dedicated presentations on each of the three authors by Marco Fanelli (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) on Zigabenos, Alessandra herself on Kamateros, and Ottavia Mazzon (University of Padua) on Choniates. For an open access catalogue of the museum exhibition organized by all the above, click here.

A conversation with Alessandra Bucossi (Ca' Foscari University) on the preoccupation with heresy in the twelfth century, which resulted in the production of a number of massive anti-heretical treatises. We discuss the historical context of their production, the empire's increasing engagement with the Latins and Armenians, whose Churches deviated from that of Constantinople in certain points, and the function of these works. The conversation is based on a team project on this topic that Alessandra headed up, which we will discuss in more detail in the sequel episode.

A conversation with Marica Cassis (University of Calgary) about the archaeological study of the east Roman world and how it interfaces with traditional, text-based historiography. What can archaeology see and what not? What challenges has it faced to emerge as a field and what are the prospects that it faces today? The conversation was inspired by Marica's introduction to Medieval Archaeology in the East Roman World (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2024).

A conversation with Alicia Walker (Bryn Mawr College) on the pseudo-Arabic inscriptions (or pseudo-kufic) that appear on a number of tenth- and eleventh-century churches in Greece, most notably at the monastery of Hosios Loukas. What did the Arabic script signify in Orthodox culture at the time if not tension with Islam? The conversation is based on Alicia's essay 'Letters from the Edge: Mapping Pseudo-Arabic between Byzantium and the Near East,' in E. Bolman et al., eds., Worlds of Byzantium: Religion, Culture, and Empire in the Medieval Near East (Cambridge University Press 2024). Alicia also prepared a video version of our conversation with images of the places and objects we discuss: you can find it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqoBeFpWots