Dreaming In Byzantium And Beyond

Although the actual dreaming experience of the Byzantines lies beyond our reach, the remarkable number of dream narratives in the surviving sources of the period attests to the cardinal function of dreams as vehicles of meaning, and thus affords modern scholars access to the wider cultural fabric of symbolic representations of the Byzantine world. Whether recounting real or invented dreams, the narratives serve various purposes, such as political and religious agendas, personal aspirations or simply an author’s display of literary skill. It is only in recent years that Byzantine dreaming has attracted scholarly attention, and important publications have suggested the way in which Byzantines reshaped ancient interpretative models and applied new perceptions to the functions of dreams. This book - the first collection of studies on Byzantine dreams to be published - aims to demonstrate further the importance of closely examining dreams in Byzantium in their wider historical and cultural, as well as narrative, context. Linked by this common thread, the essays offer insights into the function of dreams in hagiography, historiography, rhetoric, epistolography, and romance. They explore gender and erotic aspects of dreams; they examine cross-cultural facets of dreaming, provide new readings, and contextualize specific cases; they also look at the Greco-Roman background and Islamic influences of Byzantine dreams and their Christianization. The volume provides a broad variety of perspectives, including those of psychoanalysis and anthropology.

This book - the first collection of studies on Byzantine dreams to be published - aims to demonstrate the importance of closely examining dreams in Byzantium in their wider historical and cultural, as well as narrative, context. The remarkable number of dream narratives in Byzantine hagiography, historiography, rhetoric, epistolography, and romance attests to the cardinal function of dreams as vehicles of meaning in politics, religion and literature. The essays provide a broad variety of perspectives, exploring gender, eroticism, Greco-Roman and Islamic influences, psychoanalysis and anthropology.

This collection of studies on Dreams, Memory and Imagination in Byzantium reveals the distinctive and important roles of memory, imagination and dreams in the Byzantine court, the proto-Orthodox church and broader society from Constantinople to Syria and beyond

This book is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Maria Mavroudi, Professor of History at UC Berkeley. Maria Mavroudi specializes in the study of the Byzantine Empire and this wide-ranging conversation explores her extensive research on the Byzantine Empire and how it has repeatedly been undervalued by historians despite its having been a military and cultural powerhouse for more than a millennium. This carefully-edited book includes an introduction, Beyond the High-School Narrative, and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter: I. Becoming A Byzantinist - Inspiration and motivation II. Historical Background - Byzantine beginnings III. The High-School Narrative - History as a cultural mirror IV. Recovering Truth - A never-ending goal V. Building Knowledge - Standing on the shoulders of giants VI. Annotated Discoveries - Leo the Mathematician, for example VII. A Translational Discovery - From Arabic to Greek, surprisingly VIII. Arrows of Causality - Consequential greatness IX. Decline - A matter of opinion? X. Extracting Meaning - Interpreting human experiences XI. Ever-Moving Targets - Arab-Greek bilingualism and its implications About Ideas Roadshow Conversations Series: This book is part of an expanding series of 100+ Ideas Roadshow conversations, each one presenting a wealth of candid insights from a leading expert in a relaxed and informal setting to give non-specialists a uniquely accessible window into frontline research and scholarship that wouldn't otherwise be encountered through standard lectures and textbooks. For other books in this series visit our website (https://ideas-on-film.com/ideasroadshow/).

Dreambooks in Byzantium offers the first English translation with commentary of six of the seven extant Byzantine oneirocritica--manuals on the interpretation of dreams. Dreams permeated all aspects of Byzantine culture, from religion to literature to everyday life, and drew upon Classical and Islamic literature, oral and written Byzantine materials, and, perhaps, their own oneirocritic practices. Much of the source-material was pagan in origin and was reworked into a Christianized context, with many interpretations given a Christian coloring.

The monograph deals with the topic of ghosts in universal literature from a polyhedral perspective, making use of different perspectives, all of which highlight the resilience of these figures from the very beginning of literature up to the present day. Therefore, the aim of this volume is to focus on how ghosts have been translated and transformed over the years within literature written in the following languages: Classical Greek and Latin, Spanish, Italian, and English.

Born to rule Although born to rule, Aidan lives as a scribe in a remote Irish monastery on the far, wild edge of Christendom. Secure in work, contemplation, and dreams of the wider world, a miracle bursts into Aidan's quiet life. He is chosen to accompany a small band of monks on a quest to the farthest eastern reaches of the known world, to the fabled city of Byzantium, where they are to present a beautiful and costly hand-illuminated manuscript, the Book of Kells, to the Emperor of all Christendom. Thus begins an expedition by sea and over land, as Aidan becomes, by turns, a warrior and a sailor, a slave and a spy, a Viking and a Saracen, and finally, a man. He sees more of the world than most men of his time, becoming an ambassador to kings and an intimate of Byzantium's fabled Golden Court. And finally this valiant Irish monk faces the greatest trial that can confront any man in any age: commanding his own Destiny.