A Race Against Time: The Impact of Contemporary Environmental and Demographic Changes on the Research of the Historical Geography of Byzantium, in: 24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Volume 1. Proceedings of the Plenary Sessions. Venice 2022, 191-210. [peer reviewed] (original) (raw)
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European Journal of Post-Classical Archaeologies, 2020
Focusing on the use and abuse in the study of Byzantine archaeology and Urbanism of the idea of the “Invisible Cities” as introduced in literature by Italo Calvino, this article attempts to set a framework for understanding Byzantine cities within clear and scientifically defined analytical categories as part of a modernist agenda. At the same time the article examines the distorting influence of Constantinople, as the capital city, on any and all our efforts to understand Byzantine urbanism as a social phenomenon in its true scale. Italian: L’articolo vuole definire una cornice per la comprensione delle città bizantine attraverso categorie analitiche chiare e scientificamente definite come parte di un’agenda modernista, focalizzandosi sull’uso e abuso dell’archeologia bizantina e dell’urbanesimo e utilizzando il concetto calviniano di “Città Invisibili”. Allo stesso tempo l’articolo esamina l’influenza distorta di Costantinopoli, come città capitale, su tutti gli sforzi per capire l’urbanesimo bizantino come fenomeno sociale alla sua scala reale.
In: H. Baron / F. Daim (eds), A Most Pleasant Scene and an Inexhaustible Resource. Steps Towards a Byzantine Environmental History. Byzanz zwischen Orient und Okzident 6 (Mainz 2017) 9-14., 2017
This introductory text begins with the observation that the modern perception of Byzantium is strongly shaped by gen uinely »cultural« achievements, while the environments of the Empire barely play a role. A short history of research then outlines those frames in which knowledge of the en vironments was primarily gained: from the earliest works on Byzantine agriculture, mainly based on historical sources, to the interdisciplinary settlement archaeology projects which unlocked landscapes with surveys, beginning in the 1990s, to the boom of scienti c techniques and methodologies we still experience and which are increasingly applied in inventive interdisciplinary studies. This having been outlined, the mis sion of this book and the conference it relates to are stated: to present ideas and approaches, to create synergies and to gain a notion of how to proceed. In the end, a perspective is sketched that stresses mainly three points: that the sciences and humanities need to join forces in order to write environ mental history, that interdisciplinary communication is the only way, and that we should not leave aside questions of mentality – Byzantine or our own.
Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies, 2016
Plenary Session in the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies: Byzantium – A World of Changes. The Association Internationale des Études Byzantines (AIEB) will hold its next congress, the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies, in Belgrade from the 22nd to 27th of August, 2016. The members of the Serbian National Committee for Byzantine Studies, as well as all Byzantinists and medievalists of Serbia, are proud that the Belgrade school for Byzantine studies is to be entrusted again with the organization of this congress. We warmly welcome Byzantine scholars from around the world to participate and contribute to this important exchange of ideas and thereby establish the present state of research in Byzantine studies. The upcoming congress will focus on deepening the understanding of Byzantium (the Byzantine Empire) as a living organism that lasted for more than a millenium and in which ideology, erudition, art and culture essentially contributed to the deveolpment of Europe from the Late Antique and Medieval period up to the present day. The congress will also offer young researchers the opportunity to share their ideas and projects for future research on Byzantium. Bearing all this in mind, the Réunion-Intercongrès held in Athens in September 2013 accepted the name and motto of the Congress suggested by the organizers. Both elements emphasize the above-mentioned need for understanding Byzantium as a complex organism that calls for innovative approaches to the future research. The president of the Republic of Serbia, Tomislav Nikolić, will act as patron for the International Congress due to its importance for scientific research in Serbia and for the cultural identity of the country, for which the organizing body would like to expresses its deep gratitude. In addition, because of the scientific and cultural prominence of the International Congress, the organizers have taken further steps to secure international patronage. More Info about the Congress on the Official Web Site: http://byz2016.rs
Proceedings of the Plenary Sessions. The 24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies, 2022
OPEN ACCESS: http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-590-2 The present volume collects most of the contributions to the plenary sessions held at the 24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies, and incisively reflects the ever increasing broadening of the very concept of ‘Byzantine Studies’. Indeed, a particularly salient characteristic of the papers presented here is their strong focus on interdisciplinarity and their breadth of scope, both in terms of methodology and content. The cross-pollination between different fields of Byzantine Studies is also a major point of the volume. Archaeology and art history have pride of place; it is especially in archaeological papers that one can grasp the vital importance of the interaction with the so-called hard sciences and with new technologies for contemporary research. This relevance of science and technology for archaeology, however, also applies to, and have significant repercussions in, historical studies, where – for example – the study of climate change or the application of specific software to network studies are producing a major renewal of knowledge. In more traditional subject fields, like literary, political, and intellectual history, the contributions to the present volume offer some important reflections on the connection between Byzantium and other cultures and peoples through the intermediary of texts, stories, diplomacy, trade, and war.
The field of Byzantine Studies has recently gained impetus in Croatia from the establishment of the Croatian Society for Byzantine Studies, which aspires to become a cross-disciplinary research hub for experts in manifold disciplines related to Byzantine Studies not only in Croatia but in the region as well. Following the auspicious first steps of bringing Byzantine Studies into the focus of Croatian academia and the research community, the Croatian Society for Byzantine Studies now aims to attract internationally acclaimed researchers of diverse disciplinary backgrounds to a forum that will offer an opportunity to discuss a plethora of research topics and questions bearing on the presence of Byzantium in the Adriatic, and specifically to analyze the profile, genesis and transformation of the region in response to the Byzantine world system. The aim is to present and examine old as well as fresh ideas in an innovative way to provide a more complete and in-depth picture of the political, socio-economic, religious, legal, cultural aspects of Byzantine influence, both direct and indirect, detectable in the Adriatic, and particularly the eastern Adriatic coastal area, with a chronological span from the Age of Justinian I to the final disappearance of all vestiges of Byzantine authority and political sway in the region in the twelfth century. Organisation Committee: Ivan Basić (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Split); Hrvoje Gračanin (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb); Marko Petrak (Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb); Trpimir Vedriš (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb).