Workshop on Late Antiquity and Byzantium

The Workshop on Late Antiquity and Byzantium is pleased to announce its next meeting.

Kelly Andino will present “The Holy Sepulchre until the Siege of Jerusalem: An Examination of the Late Antique Texts, Archaeological Evidence, and Material Sources.”

This paper will attempt to reconstruct the history of the early life of the Basilica Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem until the seventh century, relying upon textual and material sources to reconfigure a narrative of both the physical building and its role within Byzantine religion and culture.

Please join us on Tuesday, May 10th, at 4:30 pm in CWAC 152.

The Workshop on Late Antiquity and Byzantium is pleased to announce its next meeting.

Leonidas Pittos will present “Aesthesis and Aesthetics in Nicholas Kabasilas’ Mystagogic Works.”

The relationship between Hesychasm and the liturgical theology of the lay theologian and humanist Nicholas Kabasilas has been debated in modern scholarship. Yet, much of the debate has focused narrowly on the differences between Hesychasm’s contemplative spiritualism and Kabasilas’ emphasis on liturgy as well as on the role of reason in spiritual perfection. This paper will suggest that aesthetics and the role of the senses in liturgy and spirituality may cast a brighter light on Kabasilas’ relationship to Hesychasm.

Please join us on Tuesday, May 3rd, at 4:30 pm in CWAC 152.

The Workshop on Late Antiquity and Byzantium is pleased to announce its next meeting.

Carlos Grenier will present “To String the Pearls of Orthodoxy: Vernacular Sunni Apologetics in Fifteenth Century Gallipoli in its Borderland Context.”

This paper assesses vernacular Turkish Sunni dogmatic and catechistic writing in the fifteenth-century Marmara frontier region within its local context, marked by contemporaneous conversations between local Muslims and Christians — as recorded in Ottoman, Greek, and Western accounts — on the nature of their respective faiths. It argues that the successful and durable forms of populist Ottoman Islam represented by the writings of the Yazicizade brothers of Gallipoli (Mehmed, d. 1451 and Ahmed, d. 1465) was fundamentally conditioned by the interconfessional debates of the frontier.

Please join us on Tuesday, April 19th, at 4:30 pm in CWAC 152.

The Workshop on Late Antiquity and Byzantium is pleased to announce its next meeting.

Nathan Leidholm will present “The Representation and Appropriation of the Persian Past in Middle Byzantine Court Rhetoric.”

It is commonly acknowledged that Byzantine culture owed a particular debt to and maintained certain affinities with elements of the Ancient Greek, Roman, and Christian past. This is particularly visible in imperial court rhetoric, which served as a vital means of constructing the public image of the emperor and reinforcing the cultural values that held the empire together. This paper, however, explores a fourth, often overlooked element in such rhetoric, which played an important role in the construction of the image of the Byzantine ruler and of the empire’s place in history: the Achaemenid Persian past.

Please join us on Tuesday, April 12th, at 4:30 pm in CWAC 152.

The Workshop on Late Antiquity and Byzantium is pleased to announce its next meeting.

Matthew Milliner will present “A Madonna of the Future: Rethinking the Afterlife of Icons.”

Echoing Nicholae Iorga’s Byzance après Byzance, the art historical phrase “afterlife of icons” is intended to counter the assumption that the influence of Byzantine icons ended in 1453. The term afterlife, however, implies death, and is therefore ill suited to charting the vibrant life of Byzantine icons from the fifteenth century to the present. After examining its historical beginnings, this paper explores one particular Byzantine icon’s ubiquity in Renaissance painting, popular visual culture, and contemporary art. Replacing afterlife, an alternate biological metaphor emerges: Byzantium as a womb for the embryonic development of icons, leading to the violent birth pangs of 1453, after which the life of an icon actually begins.

Please join us on Tuesday, April 5th, at 4:30 pm in CWAC 152.