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IMC 2019: Sessions

Session 1240: Byzantine Materialities, III: Contemporary Approaches and Patronage

Wednesday 3 July 2019, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman & Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham
Organiser:Leslie Brubaker, Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman & Modern Greek Studies / Institute of Archaeology & Antiquity, University of Birmingham
Moderator/Chair:Daniel K. Reynolds, Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman & Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham
Paper 1240-aMateriality and Manuscript Studies in the Digital Era
(Language: English)
Kallirroe Linardou, Department of Theory & History of Art, Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA)
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Computing in Medieval Studies, Manuscripts and Palaeography
Paper 1240-bThe Materiality of Weaving: Anni Albers and the Byzantines
(Language: English)
Henry Maguire, Department of the History of Art, Johns Hopkins University
Index terms: Art History - General, Byzantine Studies
Paper 1240-cFemale Agency in 11th-Century Byzantium: The Development of the Site of St George Mangana during the Tenure of Maria Skleraina, 1042-1046
(Language: English)
Ewan Short, School of History, Archaeology & Religion, Cardiff University
Index terms: Architecture - Religious, Byzantine Studies, Gender Studies
Abstract

This session is the third of four interconnected panels concerned with Byzantine Materiality. The focus here is on the intersection of modern technologies or ideologies and Byzantine Materiality. We open with a paper on digital technologies and how these have impacted on Byzantine manuscript studies and our core understanding of what Byzantine Materiality means. The second paper concerns patches attached to Early Byzantine tunics which replicated the structures of weaving, as if taking a magnifying glass to the garment, and how these patches can be viewed in the light of modernist and medieval interpretations respectively. The final paper explores the modern concept of agency in a gendered interpretation of material patronage. The session as a whole raises issues of how modern approaches to materiality work with, or against, what we understand of Byzantine approaches, and what a comparison of the two teaches us about the Byzantines and ourselves.