IMC 2023: Sessions

Session 713: 'No Island is an Island': The Byzantine Insular Networks from Late Antiquity to the Medieval Period

Tuesday 4 July 2023, 14.15-15.45

Organisers:	Zeynep Olgun, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge Luca Zavagno, Department of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, Eastern Mediterranean University, Famagusta
Moderator/Chair:	Zeynep Olgun, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
Paper 713-a	Insularity, Communication, and Literary Geography in the Aegean after 1204: Michael Choniates' Letters from Kea (Language: English) John Kee, Department of the Classics, Harvard University Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Geography and Settlement Studies, Language and Literature - Greek, Learning (The Classical Inheritance)
Paper 713-b	Connectivity and Insularity: The Case Study of the Monastery Island of Patmos (Language: English) Marie-Myriam Carytsiotis, Le Laboratoire d'Archéologie Médiévale et Moderne en Méditerranée, Aix-Marseille Université Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Economics - General, Local History, Maritime and Naval Studies
Paper 713-c	Late for Dinner: Heterotopy, Heterochrony, and Early Medieval Port Society (Language: English) Ian Randall, Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia Index terms: Archaeology - Artefacts, Archaeology - Sites, Economics - Trade, Social History
Abstract	In current Byzantine historiography, insular spaces have been recontextualised as encompassing various economic, religious, and artistic networks. These networks have tied the islands not only to one another, but also to the mainland. This connectivity was maintained by agents such as pilgrims, travelers, merchants, artists, as well as the daily movement of the local people. Our session offers various approaches to these networks connecting the islands of the Byzantine Mediterranean in a diachronic, comparative, and inter-disciplinary perspective, including history, literature, and archaeology.