The Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research
The Ioannou Centre for Classical & Byzantine Studies
66 St. Giles, Oxford
OX1 3LU
Chair: Prof. Averil Cameron
Director: Dr. Peter Frankopan
November 1-22 December 2010
Sacred Faces. Icons in Oxford.
An Exhibition of Russian and Greek icons from the collections of the Ashmolean and Christ Church was held at the Christ Church Picture Gallery
To download a catalogue of the exhibition, please click here
15-20 November 2010
An icon exhibition was held in Worcester College Chapel
Saturday 27 November 2010
Study day on the Manuscripts of St. Catherine’s monastery, Sinai of in honour of the late Professor . Ihor Ševčenko
in association with the St. Catherine’s Foundation and OCLA
A day looking at the conservation work currently being carried out on the important collection of ancient and medieval manuscripts housed in the library of St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai. This work is organized and funded by the St. Catherine’s Foundation. The programme illustrated the prominent part played in the field of manuscript studies by scholars of Oxford University. It commemorated the contribution made to the study of the Sinai monastery by Ihor Ševčenko, member of the Foundation, past Visiting Fellow of All Souls and Wolfson Colleges, Oxford and member of the Editorial Board of Oxford Studies in Byzantium. A memorial fund in his name for the restoration of Slavonic manuscripts was announced.
For details of the day, please click here :
Saturday 30 April 2011, 1.30 - 6pm, Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Late antiquity or Byzantium: The parting of the ways or the ways that never parted?
The periodization of late antiquity has received a huge amount of attention, including, for instance a set of opening articles in the new Journal of Late Antiquity. Was late antiquity short or long: did the Roman empire fall in the fifth century, or did late antiquity continue well into the Islamic period? And when did Byzantium begin: with the founding of Constantinople or only in the seventh century? The editors of the many recent Companions and Handbooks to late antiquity and Byzantium have all had to take a view on these issues. This joint workshop celebrated the collaboration between the Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity (OCLA) and the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research (OCBR) and invited late antique scholars and Byzantinists to give their views on these questions, and to consider the effects of periodization in their field, and how much it matters.
The colloquium was convened by Averil Cameron and Neil McLynn and kindly sponsored by Paul Pheby.
Speakers included Arnaldo Marcone, Paul Stephenson, Mark Whittow, Peter Sarris and Judith Herrin.
For the programme, please click here
4-5 March 2011
Oxford Byzantine Society: Graduate Symposium
The Oxford Byzantine Society hosted a two day graduate symposium ‘Between Constantines: Representations and Manifestations of Empire.’ Held at the History Faculty, the conference attracted students from across Europe and beyond. More than thirty five presentations were given by post-graduate students on a wide range of topics. Arranged by the Oxford Byzantine Society, the conference was supported with sponsorship from the OCBR, OCLA, the Oxford Medieval History Society and the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies.
For the Colloquium poster, please click here; for the schedule, please click here
For the the booklet containing abstracts of the symposium, please click here
Saturday 6-Sunday 7 November 2010
International Workshop on the Letters of Michael Psellos
This workshop, which forms part of a major project on The Transformation of Byzantium: Law, Society and Literature in the eleventh century, took place in Oxford, focusing on Michael Psellos. The workshop focused on the letters written by Psellos, one of the leading intellectuals in Constantinople in the eleventh century, looking both at the corpus as a whole and at individual letters of particular interest. Papers were given by Marc Lauxtermann, Michael Jeffreys and Dieter Reinsch, amongst others.
For details of the workshop, please click here:
EXHIBITIONS
20 January - 31 March ‘From the Bosporos to Oxford: Unseen Photographs of Professor Martin Harrison’s Byzantine Excavations in Istanbul’
In the 1960s, Prof. Martin Harrison led a major excavation of the Saddlers market in the centre of Istanbul, centring on the sixth century church of St. Polyeuktos, built by Anicia Juliana.
The exhibition, curated by Dr. Georgi Parpulov and Dr. Lukas Schachner and kindly supported by Elizabeth Harrison, celebrate the contribution made by scholars in Oxford to the excavations and to the interpretation of their findings.
To download a booklet about the exhibition, featuring a foreword by Prof. Cyril Mango, please click here
For information about the Martin Harrison Fellowship, which facilitates an exchange between Turkish archaeologists and Oxford University, click here
20-21 May 2011
The Transformation of Byzantium: Law, Society and Literature in the Eleventh Century
The next session in the Transformation of Byzantium project took place on 20-21 May and looked at Social Change in the eleventh century.
Speakers included Mark Whittow, Jean-Claude Cheynet, Konstantinos Smyrlis, Philipp Niewöhner, Jeroen Poblome and Eva Kaptijn, John Haldon, Dimitrios Krallis, Tim Greenwood, Ghislaine Noyé and Chris Wickham.
For details of the workshop, please click here. To contact the convenor, please email james.howard-johnston@ccc.ox.ac.uk
A report on this major collaborative project is available to download here.
4 June 2011
Book Production in the Byzantine World
This scholarly gathering was held in Oxford on 4 June to to pave the way for an interdisciplinary history of the book in Byzantium. Over the past decade, significant advances have been made in this field by identifying groups of interconnected manuscripts. These discoveries now need to be fitted into a larger framework;; the patronage and production of books ought to be discussed in a broader, diachronic perspective. The colloquium brought together palaeographers, philologists and art historians with the aim of surveying the current state and future directions of research.
Speakers included Lukas Schachner, Alessia Aletta, Andre Jacob, Zaza Skhirtladze, Karin Krause, Marc Lauxtermann, Elizabeth Jeffreys, Daniele Biaconi, John Lowden and John Lowden.
The Colloquium took place at the Ioannou Centre for Classical & Byzantine Studies, 66 St. Giles.
For full details, including the programme, please click here:
14 May 2011
Economy and Society in Late Sassanian and Early Islamic Iraq
The Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity, in association with the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research, hosted a colloquium on 14 May on Late Sassanian and Early Islamic Iraq. The colloquium was convened by Hugh Kennedy (SOAS) and included papers by scholars from the USA, the Netherlands and Paris, and from the LSE.
For details of the workshop, please click here.
24 January 2012
OCBR Special Lecture
Ioannou Centre, 5pm
Dr. Peter Frankopan, Director of the OCBR, will give an OCBR Special Lecture on The First Crusade: The Call from the East, to mark the publication of his new book on the origins of the Crusade. The book has been hailed in the US as ‘over-turning a millennium of scholarship’, and by critics in the UK as ‘dazzling’, ‘the most important book on the Crusades since Runciman’ and as a provocative and highly original explanation of the world-changing events that followed the First Crusade.’
The lecture will be followed by a reception. All are welcome to attend.
For a poster of the event, please click here.
4 February 2012
Byzantine and Ummayad urbanism in Late Antiquity
The Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity, in association with the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research and the Khalili Centre, held a colloquium on 4 February on Urbanism in Byzantium and the Ummayad worlds in late antiquity.
The colloquium presented and discussed excavations at Jerash and other sites in the Near East/Levant which have recently produced abundant high-quality evidence from the Byzantine and early Islamic periods, including dwelling-houses, production sites, adapted streets, churches, and early mosques.
The Colloquium took place in the Danson Room at Trinity College.
For the programme, including a list of speakers, please click here
24-26 March 2012
45th Spring Symposium in Byzantine Studies
The OCBR was proud to offer its support to the 45th Spring Symposium in Byzantine Studies which took take place in Oxford from 24-26 March at the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies in St. Giles.
17 January 2012
OCLA Special Lecture
Ioannou Centre, 5pm
Prof. Philipp von Rummel will give an OCLA Special Lecture at the Ioannou Centre for Classical & Byzantine Studies entitled ‘The Fading Power of Images: Material culture and identity in late antiquity and the early middle ages’. All are welcome to attend.
For a poster of the event, please click here.
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Byzantium is famed as a place where the seemingly insubstantial could hold great weight: where the operation of wills and natures was a matter of life and death, where images could save or damn, where the pomp of court held an empire together, and great processions heralded the invisible presence of the divine. Is this reputation justified, or just another Byzantine myth? And how were boundaries between the real and the illusory understood?
For further information, and to enrol, please click here
The focus of the Symposium ‘Byzantium was the 11th Century’
Speakers included Jean-Claude Cheynet, Paul Magdalino, Marc Lauxtermann, Michael Jeffreys, Peter Sarris, Catherine Holmes, Peter Frankopan, Mark Whittow, Leonora Neville, Jane Baun, Charlotte Roueche, Floris Bernard, Andrew Louth, Georgi Parpulov, Barbara Crostini, Jonathan Shepard, Juith Ryder, Demetrios Krallis, Robert Ousterhout, Anthony Eastmond, Florin Curta and Tim Greenwood and James Howard-Johnston.
For the programme, please click here.
17-18 February 2012
Oxford Byzantine Society - International Graduate Conference
Reality and Illusion: Seeing through the ‘Byzantine Mirage’
The Oxford Byzantine Society hosted its international graduate conference in Oxford from 17-18 Februrary, on the theme Reality and Illusion: Seeing through the ‘Byzantine Mirage