Proceedings Of The 22nd International Congress Of Byzantine Studies Sofia 22 27 August 2011

The main theme of the congress, Byzantium without borders, aims at exploring the role of this great empire in the medieval world and its undiminished contemporary significance. The Congress program was designed so as to encourage the presentation of research in both traditional and novel areas. There emerged the five main themes around which the round table discussions in volume 2 have been constructed. These are: Philology, Palaeography, Codicology; Archaeology and History; History of Art and Music; Theology and Philosophy; Economy, Politics, Urban Life. Volume 3 contains a diverse collection of more than 500 abstracts of free communications and posters presented at the 22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies--Publisher.

The main theme of the congress, Byzantium without borders, aims at exploring the role of this great empire in the medieval world and its undiminished contemporary significance. The Congress program was designed so as to encourage the presentation of research in both traditional and novel areas. There emerged the five main themes around which the round table discussions in volume 2 have been constructed. These are: Philology, Palaeography, Codicology; Archaeology and History; History of Art and Music; Theology and Philosophy; Economy, Politics, Urban Life. Volume 3 contains a diverse collection of more than 500 abstracts of free communications and posters presented at the 22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies--Publisher.

Samuel P. Müller offers here the first book-length study of the image of Latins in Byzantine historiography of the long twelfth century, arguing that this image is more complex and ambivalent than often claimed.

The eleventh century in Byzantium is all about being in between, whether this is between Basil II and Alexios Komnenos, between the forces of the Normans, the Pechenegs and the Turks, or between different social groupings, cultural identities and religious persuasions. It is a period of fundamental changes and transformations, both internal and external, but also a period rife with clichés and dominated by the towering presence of Michael Psellos whose usually self-contradictory accounts continue to loom large in the field of Byzantine studies. The essays collected here, which were delivered at the 45th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, explore new avenues of research and offer new perspectives on this transitional period. The book is divided into four thematic clusters: 'The age of Psellos' studies this crucial figure and seeks to situate him in his time; 'Social structures' is concerned with the ways in which the deep structures of Byzantine society and economy responded to change; 'State and Church' offers a set of studies of various political developments in eleventh-century Byzantium; and 'The age of spirituality' offers the voices of those for whom Psellos had little time and little use: monks, religious thinkers and pious laymen.

Using a comprehensive evaluation of recent archaeological findings, Avni addresses the transformation of local societies in Palestine and Jordan between the sixth and eleventh centuries AD. Arguing that these archaeological findings provide a reliable, though complex, picture, Avni illustrates how the Byzantine-Islamic transition was a much slower and gradual process than previously thought, and that it involved regional variability, different types of populations, and diverse settlement patterns. Based on the results of hundreds of excavations, including Avni's own surveys and excavations in the Negev, Beth Guvrin, Jerusalem, and Ramla, the volume reconstructs patterns of continuity and change in settlements during this turbulent period, evaluating the process of change in a dynamic multicultural society and showing that the coming of Islam had no direct effect on settlement patterns and material culture of the local population. The change in settlement, stemming from internal processes rather than from external political powers, culminated gradually during the Early Islamic period. However, the process of Islamization was slow, and by the eve of the Crusader period Christianity still had an overwhelming majority in Palestine and Jordan.

Compensating a four-decades shortfall, this collective volume is the first reader in Byzantine spatial studies. It offers a diversity of topics and scientific approaches, articulated by up-to-date interdisciplinary dialogue, and reflects on the future challenges of Byzantine spatial studies.

Nonnus of Panopolis (fifth century CE) composed two poems once thought to be incompatible: the Dionysiaca, a mythological long epic with a marked interest in astrology, the occult, the paradox and not least the beauty of the female body, and a pious and sublime Paraphrase of the Gospel of St John. Little is known about the man, to whom sundry identities have been attached. The longer work has been misrepresented as a degenerate poem or as a mythological handbook. The Christian poem has been neglected or undervalued. Yet, Nonnus accomplished an ambitious plan, in two parts, aiming at representing world-history. This volume consists mainly of the Proceedings of the First International Conference on Nonnus held in Rethymno, Crete in May 2011. With twentyfour essays, an international team of specialists place Nonnus firmly in his time's context. After an authoritative Introduction by Pierre Chuvin, chapters on Nonnus and the literary past, the visual arts, Late Antique paideia, Christianity and his immediate and long-range afterlife (to modern times) offer a wide-ranging and innovative insight into the man and his world. The volume moves on beyond stereotypes to inaugurate a new era of research for Nonnus and Late Antique poetics on the whole.