Byzantium & Friends

A conversation with Ben Anderson (Cornell University) and returning guest Mirela Ivanova (University of Sheffield) on their co-edited volume of papers on the question Is Byzantine Studies a Coloniali…

In this episode, Marion and I talk about our new co-authored book, The Field Armies of the East Roman Empire, 361-630 (Cambridge University Press, 2023). For those interested in the military history …

A conversation with Peter Heather (King's College, London) about his new book Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion, AD 300-1300 (New York: Knopf, 2023). Peter is one of the leading historians of th…

A conversation with Jennifer Westerfeld (University of Louisville) on the scripts that were used to write ancient Egyptian, especially hieroglyphs. Their last attested use was in the 390s AD, putting…

A conversation with Timothy Miller (Salisbury University) about philanthropic institutions in Constantinople, especially hospitals, orphanages, and leprosaria. Tim has done more than anyone to illumi…

A conversation with Valentina Grasso (Bard College) on Arabia before Islam. This used to be known primarily from preserved Arabic poetry, but the picture is now filling in from inscriptions and conte…

A conversation with Jeremy Swist (Brandeis University) on why some heavy metal bands write music about Roman and Byzantine history. Expect "good" and "bad" emperors to be reversed here! Jeremy has pu…

A wide-ranging conversation with Jacques Berlinerblau (Georgetown University) on the changing nature of the academic profession, especially regarding the erosion of academic freedom through the expan…

A conversation with Anna Sitz (Universität Heidelberg) on how Byzantines read ancient inscriptions - or modified, re-used, and defaced them. Ancient cities were full of inscribed texts, many on templ…

A conversation with Anna Henderson (ARC Humanities Press) about the world of academic publishing today, including its challenges, opportunities, and aspirations. ARC is a fairly recent venture, but h…

A conversation with Robin Fleming (Boston College) about how the lives and material circumstances of people in Roman Britain changed when the imperial state and its economy withdrew from the island i…

A conversation with Richard Calis (Utrecht University) about Martin Crusius (aka Kraus: 1526-1607 AD), one of the first philologist-historians who tried to reconstruct Byzantine history from the sour…

A conversation with Fotini Kondyli (University of Virginia) about our changing picture of rural communities in late Byzantium, based on her book Rural Communities in Late Byzantium: Resilience and Vu…

A conversation with Anna Kelley (University of St. Andrews) about women's labor and occupations in the Roman and later Roman empire. It turns out that they may have engaged in more types of business …

A conversation with Scott Bruce (Fordham University) about dragons, ancient, medieval, and early modern, from around the world. Where did our "canonical" image of the dragon come from? What other kin…

A conversation with Amanda Luyster (College of the Holy Cross) on how to organize a museum exhibition, from conception and design to securing the objects and planning events around it. We also talk a…

A conversation with Paul Stephenson (Penn State University) about the impact of lead mining and smelting on the miners themselves, the communities around them, and on plants, animals, and human being…

In this end-of-the-year episode, guest host Marion Kruse (University of Cincinnati) interviews me about writing narrative history. Why and how should we write narrative histories? What do they accomp…

A conversation with Jake Ransohoff (Simon Fraser University) on the practice of blinding in Byzantium. Why and how was it done? Why was it more prominent in some periods rather than in others? And ho…

A conversation with Leslie Brubaker (University of Birmingham) on the first period of Byzantine iconoclasm (ca. 730 to 787 AD). What was the problem with religious icons? What did the "Isaurian" empe…