Power and Subversion in Byzantium: Papers from the 43rd Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Birmingham, March 2010

Front Cover
Dr Michael Saxby, Professor Dimiter Angelov
Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., Nov 28, 2013 - History - 296 pages

This volume addresses a theme of special significance for Byzantine studies. Byzantium has traditionally been deemed a civilisation which deferred to authority and set special store by orthodoxy, canon and proper order. Since 1982 when the distinguished Russian Byzantinist Alexander Kazhdan wrote that 'the history of Byzantine intellectual opposition has yet to be written', scholars have increasingly highlighted cases of subversion of 'correct practice' and 'correct belief' in Byzantium. This innovative scholarly effort has produced important results, although it has been hampered by the lack of dialogue across the disciplines of Byzantine studies.

The 43rd Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies in 2010 drew together historians, art historians, and scholars of literature, religion and philosophy, who discussed shared and discipline-specific approaches to the theme of subversion. The present volume presents a selection of the papers delivered at the symposium enriched with specially commissioned contributions. Most papers deal with the period after the eleventh century, although early Byzantium is not ignored. Theoretical questions about the nature, articulation and limits of subversion are addressed within the frameworks of individual disciplines and in a larger context. The volume comes at a timely junction in the development of Byzantine studies, as interest in subversion and nonconformity in general has been rising steadily in the field.

 

Contents

List of Illustrations
Abbreviations
Art
image
Imperial art texts
Demetrios Kyritses The imperial council and the tradition
Kostis Smyrlis Financial crisis and the limits of taxation
Michael Angold The political arts at the late Palaiologan
Byzantine anti
Maria Mavroudi Pletho as subversive and his reception in
Paul Magdalino Generic subversion? The political ideology
Notes
Margaret Mullett How to criticize the laudandus
Margaret Alexiou Afterword Literary subversion

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About the author (2013)

Dimiter Angelov is Professor of Byzantine History at the University of Birmingham, UK and currently also Visiting Professor in Byzantine History at Harvard University, USA; Michael Saxby is a doctoral candidate at the University of Birmingham, UK.

Dimiter Angelov, Vasiliki Penna, Cécile Morrisson, Anthony Kaldellis, Demetrios Kyritses, Kostis Smyrlis, Michael Angold, Liz James, Anthony Eastmond, Börje Bydén, Maria Mavroudi, Paul Magdalino, Dimitris Krallis, Margaret Mullett, Athanasios Angelou Margaret Alexiou.

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