The Medieval Academy Blog

Middle Ages: digital and virtual—objects, practices, reflections
An expert meeting on 24 October 2023 (hybrid)

Ruhr-Universität Bochum, SFB 1567 Virtuelle Lebenswelten, sub project B02 Virtuelles Mittelalter

With digital media at our fingertips (quite literally), the European Middle Ages are only one click away. Today’s digital spaces allow us to approach, experience, and sometimes even immerse ourselves into reconstructions of the medieval past—whether scientifically or in popular culture. These digital landscapes reshape our perception of history, prompting a revaluation of historiographical and pedagogical approaches to the Middle Ages. And where the digital finds its physical limits, the virtual Middle Ages continue, transcending technology and creating a realm in imagination as much as in reality. Critically, we must navigate the digital’s impact on our understanding of the Middle Ages. How do the Middle Ages extend into our virtual worlds, and how does this affect how the past is created?

In this workshop medievalists, digitisation experts, museum professionals, didactic specialists, and librarians convene to explore digital and virtual developments in discourse about the Middle Ages. The experts provide video presentations beforehand. During the day of the workshop, they discuss both the practical implementation and theoretical discourse, aiming to redefine digital medievalism and reconsider how knowledge about the Middle Ages is created, formed, and communicated.

View the online video presentations from 10 October onwards.

Sign up with this link to view the videos and/or as audience for the expert meeting.: https://terminplaner6.dfn.de/b/09782316ddadbc106440aff563cb7efb-363679

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the first two lectures in our 2023–2024 lecture series.

Thursday, September 28, 2023 | 12:00 PM EDT | Zoom
Byzantium as an Indian Ocean Society
Rebecca Darley, University of Leeds

Much of the current move towards global history is focussed on connections. Viewed from this perspective, there is no very good reason for seeing Byzantium in the first millennium CE as an Indian Ocean society. Its direct contact with the Indian Ocean was attenuated in comparison with earlier Roman contact and increasingly mediated by others, most notably from the seventh century onwards, citizens of the Umayyad then Abbasid Caliphates. There are other ways to think about both Byzantium and global history, though. This paper examines Byzantium not as a player in an Indian Ocean defined by mercantile networks, but as one of many societies around the Indian Ocean littoral, shaped by common forces. Between the fourth and the ninth centuries, understanding Byzantium as an Indian Ocean society, in direct comparison with complex states from the Horn of Africa to peninsular South Asia provides a new insight into the development of governmental structures, state religion and economic practices that all affected the lives of millions of people in profound and sometimes unpredictable ways.

Rebecca Darley is a scholar of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Indian Ocean in the first millennium. She is currently employed as Associate Professor of Global History, 500-1500 CE at the University of Leeds.

Advance registration required at https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/byzantium-as-an-indian-ocean-society

Friday, October 6, 2023 | 12:00 PM EDT | Zoom
A Song of Theology and Emotion: Romanos the Melodist’s Hymn on Pentecost
Andrew Mellas, St Andrew’s Theological College and University of Sydney

While Romanos the Melodist composed hymns rather than theological treatises, the theology of his poetry echoed the festal orations of the fourth-century Cappadocian, Gregory the Theologian. Articulating the mystery of the Trinity through the performance of his hymn for the feast of Pentecost, Romanos wove together sacred song and theology, retelling the scriptural stories that defined the Byzantines, and shaping an emotional and liturgical community in Constantinople. Poetry and music showed forth the hidden fears and desires of scriptural characters amidst the overarching narrative of Pentecost, inviting the faithful to become part of the biblical narrative unfolding before them and experience the mystery of the Trinity. This paper will explore how Romanos the Melodist reimagined the events narrated in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, amplifying the biblical story, echoing the theology of Gregory’s oration on Pentecost and providing an affective script for his audience.

Andrew Mellas is a Senior Lecturer at St Andrew’s Theological College and an Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney’s Medieval and Early Modern Centre.

Advance registration required at https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/a-song-of-theology-and-emotion

Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.

The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies is pleased to announce that registration is open for the 16th Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age:

November 16-18, 2023

A great deal of recent research has focused on the objecthood of the pre-modern book and its associated materiality. But only sporadic attempts have been made to understand the role of visual representations of the book in conveying ideas about knowledge. How can our understanding be transformed when the dictum that “a picture is worth a thousand words” is put into practice, when the how of depiction is accorded as much importance as the what of textual content? This symposium will examine the means by which the book, and in particular the manuscript, is described across a wide variety of media, from painting and sculpture to digital media and film. Topics to be addressed include the book as a symbol of authority, wisdom, or piety; the visual archeology of otherwise vanished bookbinding styles, reading practices, and study spaces; and the re-imagining of the physicality of the codex through digital means. The event will also mark the public launch at Penn Libraries of the Books as Symbols in Renaissance Art (BASIRA) project, an innovative, public-access web database of thousands of depictions of books in artwork produced between about 1300 and 1600 CE. The database, like the symposium itself, aims to engage historians of religion, literacy, art, music, language, and private life, as well as book artists, conservators, and interested members of the public. The symposium is organized in partnership with the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

The program will begin Thursday evening, November 16, 5:00 pm, at the Free Library of Philadelphia in the Rare Book Department, with a reception and keynote address by Jeffrey Hamburger, Kuno Francke Professor of German Art & Culture, Harvard University. The symposium will continue November 17-18 at Penn Libraries’ Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts.

The symposium will be held in person with an option to join virtually. All are welcome to attend. A link to register and program details are available here: https://www.library.upenn.edu/events/lawrence-j-schoenberg/image-book-representing-codex.