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IMC 2017: Sessions

Session 109: Byzantine Exceptionalism: New Perspectives

Monday 3 July 2017, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art & Culture, Hellenic College Holy Cross, Massachusetts
Organiser:Christian Raffensperger, Department of History, Wittenberg University, Ohio
Moderator/Chair:Christian Raffensperger, Department of History, Wittenberg University, Ohio
Paper 109-aConstantinople: Court, Crowd, and Classicism
(Language: English)
Benjamin Anderson, Department of the History of Art, Cornell University
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Historiography - Modern Scholarship
Paper 109-bEarly Muscovite Views of Byzantium
(Language: English)
Monica White, Department of Russian & Slavonic Studies, University of Nottingham
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Historiography - Medieval
Paper 109-cHow Byzantine Was Late Antique Egypt?
(Language: English)
Darlene Brooks Hedstrom, Department of History, Wittenberg University, Ohio
Index terms: Architecture - General, Byzantine Studies
Abstract

The debate about the place of Byzantium in the premodern world is far from finished. Was Byzantium simply Rome and thus incomprehensible in comparison with anything else? Was it instead just another medieval state, among many? Was it 'other' or were its neighbors 'other' to it? This panel uses archaeological, art historical, and historical perspectives, as well as new vantage points, including Rome, Muscovy, and Egypt, to look at the place of Byzantium in the medieval world. This discussion will help medievalists, Byzantinists, and others think through their characterization of not just Byzantium but their own objects of study.