Centre for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies seminars

The Centre for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies seminar series combines CLAIBS-sponsored events and the Byzantine Studies Research seminar with select sessions of the Classics; Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies; Islam and Muslim-Christian Relations; History of Christianity; and History of Art Research seminars. Everyone is welcome to attend.

For more information, contact Professor Niels Gaul (N.Gaul@ed.ac.uk).

Semester 2 2024/25

DateSpeakerTopicVenue
Mon 13 JanCaliphal Finances Team (IMES)

‘“They have come to a place where there is no one who can read them.” The many lives of the Aberdeen papyri from Egypt to Python’

 

IMES Research Seminar with CLAIBS Seminar

5:15pm, Project Room, 50 George Square
Wed 15 JanLate Antique Lunch 1pm
Mon 27 JanGrégoire Sommers (Laboratoire d’études sur les rhétoriques [LERH], Conthey)

‘The philological and rhetorical commentaries of Neophytos the Recluse on the rhetorical-sophistic theory of Michael Psellos’

 

CLAIBS Seminar, sponsored by the ‘Rock-cut Architecture and Christian Communities in Turkey, from Antiquity to 1923’ (RACCTURK) project

5:10pm, Sydney Smith Lecture Theatre, Doorway 1, Old Medical School
Tue 28 JanSimon Loynes(IMES)

‘From esoteric communication to verbatim revelation: The conspicuous absence of the root w-ḥ-y in the schematics of revelation in medieval tafsīr’

 

IMES Research Seminar with CLAIBS Seminar

1pm, Project Room, 50 George Square
Wed 29 JanLate Antique Lunch 1pm
Mon 10 FebNik Matheou(HCA)

‘Crisis of accumulation in the Chinggisid world order: Land, capital and fiscal administration inIlkhanid Ani, 1256–1335’

 

IMES Research Seminar with CLAIBS Seminar

5:15pm, Project Room, 50 George Square
Wed 12 FebPanagiotis A. Agapitos (Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz)

‘Editing the Vita Apollonii: incompetent Byzantine scribes or threedimensional architectures of textual history?’

 

CLAIBS Seminar with Classics Research Seminar, sponsored by the ‘Byzantine authorial/autograph manuscripts: typology, terminology, methodisation’ project

5:10pm, G.16 Doorway 4, Old Medical School
Tues 25 FebCaliphal Finances Team (IMES)

‘People and Money: The agents of Abbasid taxation from the village to the caliph’

 

IMES Research Seminar with CLAIBS Seminar

1pm, Project Room, 50 George Square
Mon 3 MarShaun Tougher (Cardiff)

‘Byzantine bodies: A physical history of the “Macedonian dynasty”’

 

CLAIBS Seminar 

5:10pm, Sydney Smith Lecture Theatre, Doorway 1, Old Medical School
Wed 5 MarLate Antique Lunch 1pm
Mon 10 MarCaliphal Finances Team (IMES)

‘Accounting practices in the multilingual administration of the Abbasid era’

 

IMES Research Seminar with CLAIBS Seminar

5:15pm, Project Room, 50 George Square
Mon 17 MarBaukje van den Berg (Central European University Vienna)

‘The voice in Byzantine literary thought’

 

Byzantine Studies Seminar with Classics Research Seminar

5:10pm, Meadows Lecture Theatre, Doorway 4, Old Medical School
Wed 19 MarLate Antique Lunch 1pm
Tue 25 MarStefano Nicastro(HCA)

‘The Port of al-Iskandarīyya: The physical infrastructures and administrative roles of theMamluk Dīwān and the Genoese funduq in shaping Egyptian-Genoese commerce andinteractions (twelfth–fifteenth centuries)’

 

IMES Research Seminar with CLAIBS Seminar

1pm, Project Room, 50 George Square
Wed 2 AprLate Antique Lunch 1pm
Tues 22-Wed 23 Apr6th CLAIBS Graduate Conference

‘Shifting fortunes in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages’

 

Keynote speaker: Krystina Kubina (Austrian Academy of Sciences)

Details TBC
Wed 18 & Thu 19 JuneWorkshop, organised by Niels Gaul and Panagiotis Agapitos (Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz)‘Byzantine authorial/autograph manuscripts: typology, terminology, methodisation’Details TBC
Tue 24 JuneDavid FrankfurterTBCTBC

Semester 1 2024/25

DateSpeakerTopicVenue
Tue 17 SepMike Carr (Edinburgh)‘Trade and diplomacy between Christians and Muslims in the later medieval Mediterranean: perspectives from the papal archives IMES Research Seminar’1 pm, Project Room 1.06, 50 George Square
Wed 18 SepCLAIBS Welcome Event 2024/5 (Late Antique Lunch) 1pm, G.13, Doorway 4, Old Medical School
Wed 18 SepHan Baltussen (Adelaide/IASH)‘Eunapius’ use of theios in his Lives of Philosophers and Sophists (VPS): special, superhuman or ‘divine’?’ Classics Research Seminar 5:10pm, Meadows Lecture Theatre, Doorway 4, Old Medical School
Wed 2 OctLate Antique Lunch 1pm G.13, Doorway 4, Old Medical School
Wed 2 OctInaugural LectureBen Russell (Edinburgh): ‘Roman sculptors at Work’. 5:10pm Playfair Library, Old College
Wed 9 Oct

Joint session: 

Marios Anastasiadis

David Lewis and Murdo Homewood (Edinburgh)

‘The inside woman: a new solution to the riddle of the endothidia dola (I. Cret. IV 72 II 11–16)’

‘Reading Medical Practice in Augustine’s Sermones ad Populum through the image of the Christus medicus’. Classics Research Seminar, 

5:10pm Meadows Lecture Theatre, Doorway 4, Old Medical School
Wed 16 OctLate Antique Lunch 1pm, G.13, Doorway 4, Old Medical School
Wed 30 OctLate Antique Lunch 1pm G.13, Doorway 4, Old Medical School
Fri 1 NovSir Roderick Beaton (King’s College London), Karen Emmerich (Princeton), Sakis Gekas (York University), Paschalis Kitromilides (Academy of Athens), Michalis Sotiropoulos and Katerina Stergiopoulou (both Edinburgh)‘Perspectives on Modern Greek Studies and an Outlook on their Future at Edinburgh’. Modern Greek Studies Launch event organised by the Department of Classics.15.00 Venue tbc
Thurs 7 NovMichael Kulikowski (Penn State University)‘Government, bureaucracy, and the writing of history’. Launch lecture for the ‘Last Historians of Rome’ project5pm, Teviot Lecture Theatre, Doorway 5, Old Medical School
Mon 11 NovPéter Bara (Hungarian Academy of Sciences)‘Leo of Chalkedon: the life and deeds of this metropolitan bishop, holy man, canonist and, indeed, political actor’. CLAIBS Seminar5pm Meadows Lecture Theatre, Doorway 4, Old Medical School
Wed 13 NovLate Antique Lunch 1pm, G.13, Doorway 4, Old Medical School
Mon 18 NovMike Carr, Gianluca Raccagni, Kirsty Day, Nikolaos Chrissis (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)Roundtable discussion and book launch of Crusading against Christians in the Middle Ages. CMRS Seminar. 4:15pm, Seminar Room 1, Chrystal MacMillan Building, George Square
Sun 24-Tue 26 NovWorkshop, organised by Niels Gaul and Martin Hinterberger (University of Cyprus)‘Neophytos Enkleistos’s Testamentary Typikon: Manuscript, Text(s), Contexts’. A. G. Leventis Gallery, Nicosia – see event website for details 
Mon 25 NovAnna Kelley (St Andrews) - Title tba. CLAIBS Seminar. SEMINAR CANCELLED
Wed 27 NovLate Antique Lunch 1pm, G.13, Doorway 4, Old Medical School