BYZANTIUM: EMPIRE OF THE SEA – 21ST AABS CONFERENCE
The 21st Conference & Biennial General Meeting of the Australasian Association for Byzantine Studies, University of Queensland, St Lucia Campus, Brisbane, June 2-5, 2023.
Potential Program (subject to adjustment):
June 2 – Opening Reception at Milns Museum & Empires of the Sea Exhibition Launch
June 3 – Fryer Library Presentations – Lady Diamantina Roma Bowen’s Greek Archive
June 4 – AABS Papers & Keynote Lecture by Professor Georgia Frank (Colgate) & Dinner
June 5 – AABS BGM & AABS Papers
Call for Papers
Send abstracts of 150-200 words maximum, for 20 minute papers. Submissions should include name, institution or affiliation and, if relevant, a short letter of application for a $500 AABS Student Bursary to attend the conference from Australia or New Zealand.
Deadline for submission April 24, 2023, e-mail for submission conference@aabs.org.au.
Byzantium was an empire on, and of, the ancient Mediterranean and Black seas. Romans of this ‘late’ empire inherited a political, military and cultural system of waterborne trade and interconnections centred on the harbour city of Byzantium. Constantine’s new capital city of Constantinople swiftly replaced Rome as the Mediterranean entrepot of goods from east and west, building on the foundations of Byzantium, once the ideal Greek emporium. We seek papers engaging with this topic on any level of analysis, from history to hagiography, the city to the empire and from letters, art and iconography to harbour architecture or fishermen’s saints. Papers could consider (among other topics) Severan Byzantium, the Greek colony or Istanbul; maritime aspects of the Roman empire centred on Constantinople from the 4th to the 15th centuries; or Byzantium’s legacy in the Black Sea, on the Aegean islands, in the Italian maritime republics, or along the rivers, bays and coasts to her northeast, south or west.
Convenor: Dr Amelia R. Brown (UQ)
Full details of the call for papers.
Formed in 1978 as the Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, the Australasian Association for Byzantine Studies is a non-profit organisation that aims to foster links between scholars, students and laypersons within Australia and New Zealand who are interested in Byzantium and related fields. The Australasian Association is a member of the Association Internationale des Etudes Byzantines. It also has close working links with Byzantine groups in a number of countries. The Association supports a biennial conference, which offers the opportunity for members to present papers or to hear discussions of interest from scholars within Australia, as well as from overseas. Participation comes from a wide range of disciplines and covers a broad time span, so that papers, even when devoted to a particular theme, are always diverse. The publication of Byzantina Australiensia is an academic series which aims to provide access to texts of the Byzantine period in translation, as well as to relevant scholarship.
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