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This volume contains selected papers from the XV International Graduate Conference, highlighting the latest scholarship from a new generation of Late Antique and Byzantine scholars from around the world. The theme of the conference explored the interaction between power and the natural and human environments of Byzantium, an interaction that is an essential part of the empire's legacy. This legacy has come down to us through buildings, literature, history and more, and has proved enduring enough to intrigue and fascinate scholars centuries after the fall of Constantinople. From religion and trade at the end of Antiquity, imperial propaganda and diplomacy at the end of the first millennium, to culture and conquest under the Komnenian and Palaeologan dynasties - this volume demonstrates the length and breadth of the forays being made by young academics into the still often undiscovered country of the Late Antique and Byzantine world.
List of contents
Contents: Maximilian C.G. Lau: Preface - Peter Frankopan: Introduction - Adrastos Omissi: Caput Imperii, Caput Imperatoris: The Display and Mutilation of the Bodies of Emperors in Rome and Beyond, 296-416 - Mariana Bodnaruk: Beyond a Landscape of Conflict: The Occursus in Fourth-century Rome - Morgan Di Rodi: Christ and the City: Bishops, Churches and Temples in the Late Antique Levant - Thomas J. MacMaster: 'Not With a Bang?' The Economics of Trade and the End of Byzantine North Africa - Lorenzo Bondioli: Justinian's Legacy. The Western Byzantine Landscape of Power (VI-VII Century) - Vedran Bileta: Remapping the Socio-political Landscape on the Fringes of an Imperium: The End of Byzantine Histria - Caterina Franchi: 'S'affacci. l'Orda, e il mondo le fu pane'. Landscapes of Destruction in the Apocalyptic Tradition - Maria Papadaki: Exploring Ecclesiastical Landscapes: Holy Men in the Peloponnese During the Middle Byzantine Period and their Role in the Formation of Religious Landscapes in the Region - AnnaLinden Weller: Maintaining the Image of Byzantine Power: Normative Ideology in the Epistolary Correspondence of Leo Choirosphaktes and Symeon I of Bulgaria - Theofili Kampianaki: Vita Basilii: The Power of Rhythm in Constructing the Narrative Landscape of Imperial Propaganda - Maximilian C.G. Lau: The Power of Poetry - Portraying the Expansion of the Empire under John II Komnenos - Nicholas Matheou: Khoniates' Asia Minor: Earthly and Ultimate Causes of Decline - Katerina Ragkou: A Cityscape of Change: From Byzantine to Frankish Corinth - Jake Ransohoff: All the Tsar's Men: Reflections on Power and Society in Asenid Bulgaria (1257-1393) - Lorenzo M. Ciolfi: John III Vatatzes: History, Myth and Propaganda - Kirsty Stewart: Literary Animals in a Human Landscape.
About the author
Maximilian Lau was President of the Oxford University Byzantine Society, reading for a DPhil at Oriel College under Mark Whittow on the Reign of Emperor John II Komnenos and the Transformation of the Old Order, 1118-43.
Caterina Franchi was Secretary of the Society, reading for a DPhil at Exeter College under Marc Lauxtermann on the Alexander Romance and the reception of Alexander the Great in the Medieval tradition.
Morgan Di Rodi was Treasurer of the Society, reading for a DPhil at St Cross College under Bryan Ward-Perkins on the rise of Christianity as a force in the monumental landscape of Levantine cities between the fourth and sixth centuries.
