New Book!

Alessandra Bucossi & Alex Rodriguez Suarez (eds.), John II Komnenos, Emperor of Byzantium: In the Shadow of Father and Son, Routldege 2016, 238pp.

The Emperor John II Komnenos (1118-1143) has been overshadowed by both his father Alexios I and his son Manuel I. Written sources have not left us much evidence regarding his reign, although authors agree that he was an excellent emperor. However, the period witnessed territorial expansion in Asia Minor as well as the construction of the most important monastic complex of twelfth-century Constantinople. What else do we know about John’s rule and its period? This volume opens up new perspectives on John’s reign and clearly demonstrates that many innovations generally attributed to the genius of Manuel Komnenos had already been fostered during the reign of the second great Komnenos. Leading experts on twelfth-century Byzantium (Jeffreys, Magdalino, Ousterhout) are joined by representatives of a new generation of Byzantinists to produce a timely and invaluable study of the unjustly neglected figure of John Komnenos.

Contents:

Preface; Life and reign of John II Komnenos (1118-1143): a chronology, Rodriguez Suarez / John II Komnenos: a historiographical essay, Stathakopoulos / John II Komnenos before the year 1118, Stanković / Narratives of John II Komnenos’ wars: comparing Byzantine and modern approaches, Stouraitis / The political ideology of John II Komnenos, Papageorgiou / The triumph of 1133, Magdalino / Emperor John II’s encounters with foreign rulers, Vučetić / From Greek into Latin: western scholars and translators in Constantinople during the reign of John II, Rodriguez Suarez / Literary trends in the Constantinopolitan courts in the 1120s and 1130s, Jeffreys / Seeking a way out of the impasse: the Filioque controversy during John’s reign, Bucossi / Architecture and patronage in the age of John II, Ousterhout / Imperial impersonations: disguised portraits of a Komnenian prince and his father, Linardou / Coinage, numismatic circulation and monetary policy under John II, Papadopoulou / Bibliography, Rodriguez Suarez.

New Research Project!

Gold Ground/Silver Screen: On the Byzantine Form in Cinema

by Ulrich Meurer (Visiting Professor of Film Studies at the University of Bochum) 

http://www.ulrichmeurer.com/research_en.aspx

   

The research project focuses on the vestiges of Byzantine art and aesthetic “mentality” that surface in cinema’s modes of representation. While film history has mainly been conceptualized in terms of classical antiquity and the Renaissance (ocular perception, perspective spatiality, linear narration, psychological subjectivity …), the project posits “Byzantium” – not so much a historical reference point than a figure of thought – to unfold a set of thematic as well as formal features which connect modern and contemporary film to an alternative iconographic and cultural tradition, favoring non-perspective spaces, formulaic approaches to lighting, symmetry, flat or haptic surfaces, emblematic presentation, contemplative perception and mosaic-like narrative. However, such instances of non-dramatic iconicity are often reduced to certain “traces or repression” in dominant filmic imagery and plot (at best highlighted in certain aesthetic and spiritual aspects of Russian cinema).

Gold Ground/Silver Screen addresses the figure of the “Byzantine” in depictions of Byzantium since the early and classical phases of cinema (e.g., Louis Feuillade’s L’agonie de Byzance [1913]), in explicit references to Byzantine art (e.g., Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now [1973]), in the adoption of wider notions of Byzantine aesthetics and stylistics [e.g., Paul Schrader’s Comfort of Strangers [1990]), and in cases that introduce a largely abstract “Byzantine” sensibility expressing itself in a certain transparency of the image to the metaphysical.

The initiation of the project in July 2014 and first conceptual research work have been made possible through the support of the Istituto Ellenico di Studi Bizantini e Postbizantini di Venezia, which provided archive material, museum inventories and infrastructure.