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.
Possible paper topics might include:
Naval warfare, Greek fire, galleys, sieges of Constantinople
Harbours of Byzantium, trade goods, merchants, ship-building
Seafaring traditions, St Nicholas, the Panagia, fishermen, festivals
Metaphors in sermons, hymns etc. drawn from the sea
Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Italians, immigrants, explorers
Islands, e.g. Proconnesus for marble, Malta also for exiles
Relations with the Kievan Rus, the Varangian Guard, rivers of the north
Relations with Arabs, Jews, Egyptians, Church of the East, Slavs, etc.
Products of the sea: fish, shellfish, shells, dyes, seabirds
Positive and negative associations of the sea in Greek literature
Pirates, slaves, hostages, crusaders, military orders
Travel conditions, letter carriers, the ‘Post’ system, maps, cartography …
Possible paper topics might include:
Naval warfare, Greek fire, galleys, sieges of Constantinople
Harbours of Byzantium, trade goods, merchants, ship-building
Seafaring traditions, St Nicholas, the Panagia, fishermen, festivals
Metaphors in sermons, hymns etc. drawn from the sea
Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Italians, immigrants, explorers
Islands, e.g. Proconnesus for marble, Malta also for exiles
Relations with the Kievan Rus, the Varangian Guard, rivers of the north
Relations with Arabs, Jews, Egyptians, Church of the East, Slavs, etc.
Products of the sea: fish, shellfish, shells, dyes, seabirds
Positive and negative associations of the sea in Greek literature
Pirates, slaves, hostages, crusaders, military orders
Travel conditions, letter carriers, the ‘Post’ system, maps, cartography …
Keynote speaker: Professor Georgia Frank, Colgate University
Convenor:
Dr Amelia Brown, The School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, University of Queensland
Download this call for papers pdf.
Images: Creative Commons Licence 1.0, from East Church, Qasr Libya, ancient Theodorias, ca. 539: Pharos, Dolphin, Ship panels on Livius.org