How did emperors make decisions? with Michael Grünbart
A conversation with Michael Grünbart about the problem of imperial decision-making. Byzantine emperors are often presented to us as perfectly virtuous monarchs favored by God, but can we pull the veil away from this image and understand the difficult conditions under which they had to make decisions that could potentially cost them their throne? Whom did they consult? How and why did they delegate? Did they have experts? Data? When could they avoid making decisions? As someone in academic middle-management, these questions cut close to home!
The religion of simple believers, with Jack Tannous
They probably knew little about the minutiae of theology, but what did they know about their faith, and how important was theology for their religious identity?
Byzantine dress and fashion, with Jennifer Ball and Elizabeth Dospěl Williams
A conversation with Jen Ball and Betsy Williams on the study of Byzantine dress and fashion. How do we know what people wore? Was clothing gendered? Why are dress and jewelry studied separately? And can we talk about fashion in Byzantium, or was fashion, as some believe, a modern development?
Being Roman in Syriac, with Hartmut Leppin
On this episode of Byzantium & Friends, Anthony speaks with Hartmut Leppin about how one could be a Roman in Syriac, focusing on the sixth-century author John of Ephesos, otherwise known as Yuhannan from Amida. If one could be Roman in Greek (which is what we call “Byzantium”), why not also in Syriac?
Representing the trauma of captivity, enslavement, and degradation, with Adam Goldwyn
Can Byzantine literature speak powerfully to these transhistorical traumas? How can we activate it to do so?
What exactly ended in Late Antiquity?, with Polymnia Athanassiadi
A conversation with Polymnia Athanassiadi about the way of life that ended in late antiquity. Scholars of Byzantium and the Middle Ages may see this as a period of new beginnings, but Polymnia doesn’t want us to forget the practices and urban values that came to an end during it.
The column and equestrian statue of Justinian, with Elena Boeck
Though it is often overlooked today, Justinian’s column and colossal statue, which stood for a thousand years next to Hagia Sophia, defined the City almost as much as the Great Church itself. In this episode of Byzantium and Friends, we talk with Elena Boeck about the symbolism, history, and the engineering of this monument.
A global history of the Greeks, with Roderick Beaton
In this episode of Byzantium & Friends, a conversation with Roderick Beaton on his new book The Greeks: A Global History.
Disability in Byzantium, with Christian Laes
What might count as a disability in a Byzantine context? What social consequences did it have? How was it represented in texts? How did people try to cope with their disabilities?
Cyril, Methodios, and the conversion of the Slavs, with Mirela Ivanova
Despite the huge importance attributed to these men and their activities in modern scholarship, national narratives, and Slavic Orthodox identity, our knowledge about them rests largely on two texts whose interests are quite different from our own. What do we really know about them?
Social class in Byzantium, with Efi Ragia
A conversation with Efi Ragia on coming to grips with social class in Byzantium, a society without a fixed social hierarchy, at least not fixed in terms of hereditary groups. Claims to high (or low) social standing were often rhetorical and fluid. Who were “the powerful”? By what criteria could they be recognized, and how might others aspire to that position?
Digital humanities and Byzantium, with Kuba Kabala
A conversation about digital humanities in Byzantine research, with Kuba Kabala. How did digital humanities emerge from traditional (analog) modes of research? What new approaches do they enable? What new findings do they make possible?
Social distancing in early Byzantium, with Ellen Muehlberger and David Brakke
What did it take, and what did it do to you, to avoid the company of others in Byzantium? How far did you have to pare your life down, and how reliant were you still on networks of support and supply?
Coping with pandemics in Byzantium, with Tina Sessa and Kyle Harper
This episode looks at Byzantine reactions to pandemics. What was the threshold of social visibility for a pandemic anyway? What could the government do to help? What imaginative and social resources were activated in times of pandemic?
Carolingian and Byzantine practices of empire compared, with Jennifer Davis
A conversation with Jennifer Davis on the study of empire in a medieval context, contrasting the different ways in which Charlemagne and the Byzantine emperors ran theirs. What do we mean by empire after all?
“Get out of the way, Battal Gazi is Coming!”: Turkish films on Byzantium
A conversation with Buket Bayrı about Turkish films that prominently feature Byzantine characters and settings, especially the films about Battal Gazi.
Byzantine soft power in an age of decline, with Cecily Hilsdale
A conversation with Cecily Hilsdale about the coping strategies that late Byzantium used to counter, ameliorate, and reverse its imperial decline.
If you could meet and interview one person from Byzantine history, who would it be and why?, Part 2 with Paroma Chatterjee and Merle Eisenberg
We know so much about the Byzantines, and yet really so little. If we had the chance to meet and debrief one person from that world, who would it be?
The peoples of the Caucasus between Rome, Iran, and the steppe, with Garth Fowden
A conversation with Garth Fowden about how the peoples of the Caucasus – Armenians, Georgians, and Albanians – coped with living between two empires, how those empires sought to intervene in their region, and the cultural and religious changes that took place there during the first half of the first millennium. This episode demonstrates the illuminating ways in which global and regional history can be combined.
The power and journeys of the True Cross and other holy relics, with Lynn Jones
A conversation with Lynn Jones on how fragments of the True Cross were requested, gifted, traveled, repatriated, abducted, and returned in the early Byzantine period; how they were used to validate rival claims to power; and the anxiety caused by doubts over their authenticity.
What can we know about the life of the Prophet Muhammad?, with Sean Anthony
A conversation with Sean Anthony about the earliest sources for the life of the Prophet Muhammad, including the Quran, papyri, inscriptions, and Christian sources of the seventh century, and how Muslims were initially perceived by the Romans of the eastern provinces.
The Parthenon mosque, with Elizabeth Key Fowden
A conversation with Elizabeth Key Fowden on the Parthenon mosque and Athens under the Ottomans.
Crowd behavior in imperial Rome and Constantinople, with Daniëlle Slootjes
As our own political world is increasingly revolving around mass protests, it is time to revisit what we know about the dynamics of crowds in imperial Roman cities, whether they acted for or against the regime of the day.
When does Roman history end and Byzantine begin? with Marion Kruse
By what standards can anyone say that Roman history ends at some point and Byzantine history begins? Or is Byzantine history rather a phase of Roman history?
Byzantine poetry on its own terms, with Marc Lauxtermann
We talk about how modern Romantic notions of poetry as well as the ancient meters of classical Greek have distorted the expectations that we place on Byzantine poetry, and then discuss the specific contexts that gave rise to poetry in Byzantine society. Who were the poets? How did poems accompany objects and events?