BYZANTIUM, ITS NEIGHBOURS AND ITS CULTURES: DIVERSITY AND INTERACTION AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATION FOR BYZANTINE STUDIES XVIITH BIENNIAL CONFERENCE

BYZANTIUM, ITS NEIGHBOURS AND ITS CULTURES: DIVERSITY AND INTERACTION

AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATION FOR BYZANTINE STUDIES XVIITH BIENNIAL CONFERENCE

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~byzaus/conferences/17th2012/

20-21 July 2012, Macquarie University, New South Wales, Australia

Full programme and abstracts now available on the web site.

Registration closes 29 June.

Our understanding of Byzantium's external and internal interactions has
shifted significantly as a result of recent scholarship. The significance of
this state to a millennium of developments throughout Eurasia has been
examined; more importantly, the nature of contacts between Byzantium and its
Eurasian neighbours has been reconceived. Models for understanding
Byzantium's interactions with its neighbours have moved from imperial centre
and periphery, to 'commonwealth', to 'overlapping circles', to parallel and
mutual developments in political and cultural identity. The Byzantine
millennium now seems more connected, by commerce, diplomacy and common
cultural heritage, than before. Artefacts and ideologies were acquired,
appropriated or mediated amongst Byzantium and its neighbours in the Latin
West, southeastern and central Europe, Iran and Dar al-Islam; even prolonged
conflict did not preclude exchanges and indeed sometimes sprang from shared
developments. At the same time, what we think of as the distinctively
Byzantine milieu of Constantinople also interacted with regional cultures
that at various times formed part of its empire. Coptic and Syriac cultures
in Late Antiquity, Latin and Arabic regions in later periods, displayed both
ambivalence and engagement with the culture of Constantinople and with its
imperial and ecclesiastical leaders. As with Byzantium's external
connections, 'centre and periphery' models of internal interactions are
giving way to more dynamic models seeing metropolis and regions as parts of
broader, common developments. The conference aims to explore these
developments.

Keynote Speaker:
Professor Jonathan Shepard, University of Cambridge, former Lecturer in
History at the University of Cambridge, Fellow of Selwyn College and of
Peterhouse; his major publications include inter alia: Jonathan Shepard and
Simon Franklin, 'The Emergence of Rus, 750-1200' (1996), Jonathan Shepard
and Simon Franklin (eds), 'Byzantine Diplomacy' (1992), Jonathan Shepard,
'Byzantium's Overlapping Circles', Proceedings of the 21st International
Congress of Byzantine Studies (2006), Jonathan Shepard (ed.), 'The Expansion
of Orthodox Europe: Byzantium, the Balkans and Russia' (2007), Jonathan
Shepard (ed.), 'The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c. 500-1492'
(2008).


The Biennial General Meeting of the Association will be held during the
conference.


Conference Organisers

Andrew Gillett
Danijel Dzino
Ken Parry

Email: AABS2012@mq.edu.au