Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies

Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103

The Program in Hellenic Studies is hosting an informal preliminary presentation of graduate students' papers for the Byzantine Studies Conference. Please join the Hellenic Studies faculty and graduate students for this presentation and the discussion that will follow.

Nebojsa Stankovic, Art and Archaeology, "Middle- and Late-Byzantine Monastic Ossuaries: Architecture, Liturgical Function, and Meaning"
Kevin Kalish, Comparative Literature, "A Christian Narrative in Homeric Verse: The Melding of Poetic Traditions in the Vision of Dorotheus and the Emergence of Christian Hexameter Poetry"
Matt Milliner, Art and Archaeology, "Theodore of Studios and the Transformation of the Holy Man"

Jelena Bogdanovic (Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University)
Room 103, Scheide Caldwell House, Princeton University

From the earliest times of Christianity officiating priests encountering places of God's manifestation were vested in special garments. While the outer priestly vestments of the Byzantines changed over time, the phelonion and sakkos are vestments that, despite their different cuts, covered entirely the body of the officiating priest and episcope respectively. This talk suggests that the original tent-like form of phelonia and sakkoi can be related to the form of the universal temple, the holy tent as known from Moses' traditions. The earliest acknowledged textual reference to the Episcopal sakkos in the context of ephod comes from the late twelfth-century patriarch of Antioch and principal Byzantine canonist, Theodor Balsamon. The liturgical celebrations of the Byzantines ultimately rooted in the worship of the Temple in Jerusalem, preserved the mystical meaning of these vestments, which otherwise may not have been preserved among Christians living in later centuries. This talk demonstrates how the Episcope, ceremonially dressed into outer vestment as the garment of glory, imitates Jesus as the High Priest (cf. Heb. 10:20ff) and His spiritual re-birth in the sanctuary. At the same time, the consideration of priestly tent-like vestments in their liturgical context investigates the way Byzantines understood the relationship between the human body and canopy-like structures that framed the places of divine presence.

Jelena Bogdanovic is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Art and Archaeology. She received a B.Sc. degree in architecture (Belgrade University, 1998), an M.A in art history (Vanderbilt University, 2002) and an M.A. in art and archaeology (Princeton University, 2004). Her interests are art and architecture of the Eastern Mediterranean basin (ca. 300-1500 C.E.) with a focus on Eastern Christian and Islamic cultural frameworks. She is currently working on her dissertation with the title "Canopies: The Framing of Sacred Space in the Byzantine Tradition." The dissertation constitutes a thematic re-examination of the role of the canopy-like objects as basic symbolic and spatial units in relationship to Byzantine church architecture. [Last Updated 2006]

Alice-Mary Talbot (Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies)
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103

Although one might expect Byzantine monks and nuns to have led rigidly cloistered lives, segregated from the concerns of lay society, in reality they interacted in many ways with the outside world. This lecture will explore how monasteries mirrored Byzantine social structure, especially its emphasis on the family. It will also investigate various aspects of lay engagement with monasteries and monastic involvement with the secular domain, in the realms of artistic patronage and production, spiritual and charitable services, and economic activities.

Alice-Mary Talbot is Director of the Byzantine Studies Program at the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, Washington DC. As well as being a leading organizational light in Byzantine Studies nationally in the USA (one of the co-founders of the annual Byzantine Studies Conference), she is internationally recognized as one of the foremost scholars of Byzantine religious life and literature, as well as being a pioneer of Byzantine texts in translation, ranging from hagiography to epistolography and historiography. She has published several monographs and many articles in the field, in particular on the role of monasticism in society, on the role of women in society in general and in the monastic life in particular, and on issues of patronage and monasteries. [Last Updated 2006]

Edmund Burke, III (University of California, Santa Cruz; Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton)
Respondent: Robert Tignor (Department of History) Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103

The onset of modernity in the Mediterranean provoked a series of bitter struggles during the long nineteenth century. Hitherto these struggles have been examined primarily in the context of national histories. This essay suggests that the struggle over modernity in the region is best viewed in a world historical context. Against the background of weak states, strong hinterlands, and uneven economic development, proponents of the Liberal Project sought to introduce political and economic liberalism to the region. Conservative elites, the church, workers and peasants responded in complex but patterned ways to this challenge. In the resultant conflict all groups were split and alliances were continually reshaped.

Edmund Burke III is Director of the Center for World History at the University of California-Santa Cruz. Burke is the co-editor of two forthcoming collections of essays, The Environment and World History and After the Colonial Turn: Essays on Orientalism, History, and Theory. His edited volume, Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East, was issued in a second edition by University of California Press in 2005. Burke has written extensively on topics such as colonialism, nationalism, and social movements in the Middle East and North Africa. [Last Updated 2006]