Byzantium & Friends

A conversation with Hartmut Leppin (Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main) about how one could be a Roman in Syriac, focusing on the sixth-century author John of Ephesos, otherwise kn…

A conversation with Adam Goldwyn (North Dakota State University) about first-person narratives whose protagonists experience foreign conquest, captivity, enslavement, degradation, humiliation, and lo…

A conversation with Polymnia Athanassiadi (University of Athens) about the way of life that ended in late antiquity. Scholars of Byzantium and the Middle Ages may see this as a period of new beginnin…

A conversation with Elena Boeck (DePaul University) about her recent book The Bronze Horseman of Justinian in Constantinople: The Cross-Cultural Biography of a Mediterranean Monument (Cambridge Unive…

A conversation with Roderick Beaton (King's College London, emeritus) on his new book The Greeks: A Global History (Basic Books 2021). We discuss different ways to define who "the Greeks" were and ar…

A conversation with Mirela Ivanova (University of Sheffield) on the creation of the Slavonic alphabet and the lives of its creators, the Byzantine missionaries Constantine-Cyril and Methodios. Despit…

We know so much about the Byzantines, and yet really so little. If we had the chance to meet and debrief one person from that world, who would it be? Join me in conversation with Paroma Chatterjee (U…

A conversation with Lynn Jones (Florida State University) on how fragments of the True Cross were requested, gifted, traveled, repatriated, abducted, and returned in the early Byzantine period; how t…

A conversation with Sean Anthony (Ohio State University) about the earliest sources for the life of the Prophet Muhammad, including the Quran, papyri, inscriptions, and Christian sources of the seven…

A conversation with Daniëlle Slootjes (University of Amsterdam) on the behavior of crowds in late antique Rome and Constantinople, based on her chapter "Crowd Behavior in Late Antique Rome," in the e…

A conversation with Marc Lauxtermann (University of Oxford) on how to read Byzantine poetry on its own terms and in its own context. We talk about how modern Romantic notions of poetry as well as the…

We know so much about Byzantium, and yet really so little. If we had the chance to meet and debrief one person who had experienced some part of it first-hand, who would it be? Join me in a conversati…

A conversation with Cecily Hilsdale (McGill University) about the history and ritual functions of Egyptian obelisks, from ancient Egypt down to Rome, Constantinople, and beyond. What do obelisks mean…

A conversation with Alexander Lingas (City University of London) on the debates surrounding the reconstruction of Byzantine music. We discuss the common origins of western and eastern Christian tradi…

A conversation with Elizabeth Dospěl Williams (Dumbarton Oaks, Museum Department) on how people in Byzantium experienced the materiality of the objects they used, especially jewelry and textiles. We …

A conversation with Alexander Sarantis (Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz) on the socio-economic impact of raiding on the lives of provincials as well as the military history of the empire and…

A conversation with Tamar Hodos (University of Bristol) on how the application of market logic to humanities research and teaching is driving up tuition costs for students and their families, making …

A wide-ranging conversation with Merle Eisenberg (National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, University of Maryland) on the opportunities created for historians by media, old and new, to dissemin…

A conversation with Leonora Neville (University of Wisconsin) on whether the scholarly rubric "Byzantium" does more harm than good. How did it come into being? What biases and ideologies, especially …

A conversation with Troy Goodfellow (Paradox Interactive) on how Byzantium and other premodern civilizations are represented in video games, and how the mechanics of the games structure those represe…