Byzantium & Friends

A conversation with Emily Neumeier (Temple University) about Ali Pasha of Ioannina (d. 1822), a powerful Ottoman governor of Albanian origin who created a quasi-independent realm at a time when the O…

A conversation with Volker Menze (Central European University) about the fifth-century patriarch Dioskouros of Alexandria, what we really know about him, and why he was demonized in the western tradi…

A conversation with Przemysław Marciniak (University of Silesia) about books of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and alternative history that are either set in Byzantium or have a Byzantine ambiance…

A roundtable discussion of how the study of ancient human DNA intersects with the study of migration in late antiquity. Can laboratory scientists and primarily textual historians find ways to interfa…

A conversation with Andrea Myers Achi (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) about the enduring connections between Byzantium and a number of African cultures, beginning in late antiquity (e.g., Aksum) and…

A conversation with Eugene Smelyansky (Washington State University) on the invention of ideologically useful versions of Byzantium in modern Russia. We talk about the much more limited engagement wit…

A conversation with Monica White (University of Nottingham) about the earliest contacts between Constantinople and the first Rus'-Varangian raiders, traders, and mercenaries to cross the Black Sea. W…

A conversation with Maria Parani (University of Cyprus) on the emperor's clothing and the staging of his public appearances. We talk about his most formal garments, what he wore on the battlefield, h…

A conversation with Michele Salzman (University of California, Riverside) about the resilience shown by the city of Rome and its ability to recover from crisis during the fifth-seventh centuries. The…

A conversation with Nathan Aschenbrenner (Bard College) about western European claims to the Roman imperial title, from the Middle Ages to early modernity. We also discuss some plans in the west afte…

A conversation with Peter Sarris (University of Cambridge) about the emperor Justinian (527-565), on the 401st anniversary of the rediscovery of Prokopios' Secret History. We talk about Justinian's g…

A conversation with Sarah Bassett (Indiana University) about the exploration and discovery of the antiquities of Constantinople, starting in the sixteenth century. We talk about scholars, diplomats, …

A conversation with Christian Sahner (University of Oxford) about the notion of Islamic history as a field of study. What does it prioritize, who does it tend to see most, and what about everyone els…

A conversation with Alessandra Bucossi (Ca' Foscari University, Venice) about the text "Against the Greeks" and "Against the Latins" that were produced by writers taking sides in the Schism of the Ch…

A conversation with Christian Raffensperger (Wittenberg University) -- one hundred episodes after our previous one! -- on medieval European rulership from Iberia and Scandinavia to Rus' and Constanti…

A conversation with Olivier Hekster (Radboud University Nijmegen) about the position of Roman emperor, from the beginning to the sixth century. We talk a little bit about titles and mostly about the …

A conversation with Daphne Penna (University of Groningen) about Byzantine law, or (what it really was) the Greek-language phase of Roman law. We talk about the study of east Roman law, its experts (…

Jesse Torgerson (Wesleyan University) and I take a stab at understanding time, as it was measured, structured, and experienced in so many overlapping ways by Christian east Romans. Their days, months…

A conversation with Diana Mishkova (Center for Advanced Study, Sofia) about how the national historiographies of Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Romania cope with Byzantium -- how they try to a…