Dimiter Angelov / Michael Saxby (eds.), Power and Subversion in Byzantium. Papers from the 43rd Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies (Birmingham, March 2010), Farnham 2013
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| Contents |
This volume addresses a theme of special significance
for Byzantine studies. Byzantium has traditionally been deemed a civilisation
which deferred to authority and set special store by orthodoxy, canon and
proper order. Since 1982 when the distinguished Russian Byzantinist Alexander
Kazhdan wrote that 'the history of Byzantine intellectual opposition has yet to
be written', scholars have increasingly highlighted cases of subversion of
'correct practice' and 'correct belief' in Byzantium. This innovative scholarly
effort has produced important results, although it has been hampered by the
lack of dialogue across the disciplines of Byzantine studies.
The 43rd Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies in 2010
drew together historians, art historians, and scholars of literature, religion
and philosophy, who discussed shared and discipline-specific approaches to the
theme of subversion. The present volume presents a selection of the papers
delivered at the symposium enriched with specially commissioned contributions.
Most papers deal with the period after the eleventh century, although early
Byzantium is not ignored. Theoretical questions about the nature, articulation
and limits of subversion are addressed within the frameworks of individual
disciplines and in a larger context. The volume comes at a timely junction in
the development of Byzantine studies, as interest in subversion and
nonconformity in general has been rising steadily in the field.
