New Book!

Clemens Gantner, Freunde Roms und Völker der Finsternis. Die päpstliche Konstruktion von Anderen im 8. und 9. Jahrhundert, Vienna 2014

This is an open access publication sponsored by the Austrian Science Funds (FWF). Download a copy of the book for free here

Contents

Das Papsttum im 8. und 9. Jahrhundert sah sich unter wechselnden politischen Rahmenbedingungen mit einer Vielzahl von Anderen und Fremden konfrontiert, zum Teil im Zuge einer durchaus selbstbewussten geistlichen Machtpolitik: die Päpste waren in ihrer Interaktion mit den Anderen mitten im politischen Geschehen Italiens. Das Papsttum kommunizierte mit Anderen und über Andere, deren Alterität aber oft erst entsprechend artikuliert, definiert und konstruiert werden musste.

Clemens Gantner untersucht drei Beispiele, die auf jeweils verschiedene Art und Weise das Papsttum im behandelten Zeitraum besonders geprägt haben: die Repräsentation des „byzantinischen“ oder „griechischen“ Kaiserreichs, jene der Langobarden und Franken im 8. Jahrhundert und der einseitig dargestellte Konflikt mit „Sarazenen“ genannten muslimischen Gruppen im 9. Jahrhundert.

International Conference!

A Sociolinguistic Approach to Late Byzantine History Writing

Vienna, September 1-2, 2014

Abteilung für Byzanzforschung/Division of Byzantine Research

Convened by

Erich Trapp (erich.trapp@assoc.oeaw.ac.at)

Andrea Massimo Cuomo (andrea.cuomo@oeaw.ac.at)

Sponsored by the FWF Austrian Science Fund (P – 23912 G19) and the Division of Byzantine Research (Vienna)

Even though ‘Style switching’, ‘Levels of style’, ‘Mimesis’ and ‘Intertextuality’ are familiar concepts to scholars of Byzantine philology, and have been explored as signs of a Byzantine author’s education (or lack of it), their pragmatic function has not drawn enough attention from modern scholars. Moreover, the target audience and the active role that it played in shaping texts have not been sufficiently appreciated.

This conference aims to approach late Byzantine history wr iting from a sociolinguistic point of view, which implies that even written literary texts have to be considered as a product of the relationships linking an author, his communicative purpose, the sociocultural context and his target audience. The workshop will focus on the reception of the milestones of historical sociolinguistics – from Romaine 1982 to Eckert 2012 – in the field of Byzantine philology and will address the challenging questions of whether and how the actual scientific debate in (historical) sociolinguistics may influence the hermeneutic of medieval Greek literature.

On the basis of examples from late Byzantine historiographic works, papers presented in sessions I–I I show and analyse possible causal links between linguistic choices (i.e. vocabulary, intertextuality, allusions, style) made by Byzantine historians and the sociocultural contexts (i.e. schooling systems, cultural trends, political and religious debates etc.) in which they and their target audience(s) lived. More concretely, the following questions will be addressed: a. Does the choice of vocabulary, level of style, etc. imply a pragmatic function? b. Is it possible to analyse the communicative effectiveness of a historiographical text (i.e. its effect on the target audience)? c. Is it possible to find causal links between an author’s linguistic choices and his educational path / communicative purpose / target audience? d. Can we consider the way in which a historical text has been written as the product of its social, political and historical context? And if so, how should we do this?

A sociolinguistic approach to textual interpretation must address the common cultural framework that authors and their audience(s) shared. Papers presented in session II I will focus on the perception of different levels of Greek in the Palaeologan era on the basis of contemporary witnesses and will present case studies in which sociolinguistic theories have been successfully applied. Sessions IV–V will focus on linguistic and lexicographic resources, classical education and book culture in Palaeologan Byzantium.

International Conference!

Byzantium and the West: Perception and Reality (12th-15th c.)

Faculty of History and Archaeology – Department of History

University of Athens, 5-6 September 2014

Main Building, Amphitheatre “Alkis Argyriadis”

New Paper!

Ioannis Stouraitis, Roman identity in Byzantium: a critical approach, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 107/1 (2014) 175-220

Open access to paper-pdf here

Collective identity in the so-called Byzantine Empire is a much-debated issue that has drawn a lot of attention over the years. The current paper attempts a critical assessment of the hitherto main lines of thinking about Byzantine identity, focussing on the period between the seventh and the thirteenth centuries. By proposing an alternative view on source material based on a comprehensive theoretical framework, I argue that a conceptualization of the collective identity of this medieval imperial social order with its constantly fluctuating geopolitical and cultural boundaries needs to be disconnected from essentialist and reifying views on perennial ethnicity as well as from the modern phenomenon of the nation-state.

Book Tip!

Dimiter Angelov / Michael Saxby (eds.), Power and Subversion in Byzantium. Papers from the 43rd Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies (Birmingham, March 2010), Farnham 2013

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.

Paper Tip!

John Haldon, “Theories of Practice: Marxist History-Writing and Complexity”, Historical Materialism 21/4 (2013) 36–70

Abstract

Jairus Banaji’s collection of essays is a stimulating and provocative assessment of recent Marxist history-writing on issues of social theory and historical development in both ancient as well as modern societies. It challenges the overly simplistic application of Marx’s categories of analysis, arguing for both complexity and a clearer theorisation of fundamental terminology and analytical tropes, including labour-process and mode of production. This review article suggests that, while the basic arguments represent a welcome corrective to some Marxist historical work, and at the same time address in an accessible way non-Marxist historians, there remain some problematic issues, in particular in respect of the criteria for differentiating between different types of mode of production, the level at which this concept has heuristic application, and the distinction between the political/institutional and the modal instances of theorisations of social-economic relations. Some of these issues are exemplified by reference to particular historical cases.

Book Tip!

Jairus Banaji, Theory as History: Essays on Modes of Production and Exploitation (Brill: Historical Materialism 25), Leiden / Boston 2010

Contents

The essays collected here straddle four decades of work in both historiography and Marxist theory, combining source-based historical work in a wide range of languages with sophisticated discussion of Marx's categories. Key themes include the distinctions that are crucial to restoring complexity to the Marxist notion of a 'mode of production'; the emergence of medieval relations of production; the origins of capitalism; the dichotomy between free and unfree labour; and essays in agrarian history that range widely from Byzantine Egypt to 19th-century colonialism. The essays demonstrate the importance of reintegrating theory with history and of bringing history back into historical materialism. An introductory chapter ties the collection together and shows how historical materialists can develop an alternative to Marx's 'Asiatic mode of production'.