Byzantine Studies
The Byzantine Studies program at Dumbarton Oaks supports historical, philological, art historical, archaeological, and theological research into the civilization of the Byzantine Empire from the fourth to the fifteenth century, together with its interactions with neighboring cultures (western medieval, Slavic, and near eastern) as well as with its predecessors and successors in the region (Roman, Ottoman, and Renaissance). Since its establishment in 1940, the Byzantine Studies program has hosted a continuous program of residential fellowships and academic events such as public lectures, symposia, informal talks, and colloquia. Currently two teaching fellows, soon to be three, form part of the research community at Dumbarton Oaks, while also teaching at a neighboring university. Scholars from all over the world are encouraged to apply for one-month stipends, and doctoral candidates may spend a one-month residency here. Dumbarton Oaks supports Byzantine archaeology through project grants and through occasional meetings. An active publications program sponsors an annual journal, symposium proceedings, and occasional monographs. The important collections of coins and lead seals are the subject of new digital projects. Staff and fellows have access to an incomparable research library, the unique holdings of the Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives (ICFA), the seals and coins, and the Byzantine collection of the Museum at Dumbarton Oaks.
Margaret Mullett, Director of Byzantine Studies (mullettm@doaks.org), is currently working on performance, dream, court culture and ceremony, muses, and monasteries. She is the editor of Dumbarton Oaks Papers. Irfan Shahid, Associate Fellow (shahidi@doaks.org), is working on his book about Byzantium and the Arabs in the seventh century. Örgü Dalgiç, Teaching Fellow in Byzantine Art History and Archaeology at Dumbarton Oaks and Catholic University of America (dalgico@doaks.org), is studying floor mosaic programs in Constantinople. This year she is teaching Islamic Art and Byzantine Art at CUA. Jack Tannous, Teaching Fellow in Byzantine History at Dumbarton Oaks and George Washington University (tannousj@doaks.org), is looking at the transition from Christianity to Islam in the Near East. This year he is teaching a Byzantine survey at GWU. Jonathan Shea, Post-Doctoral Associate in Byzantine Sigillography (sheaj@doaks.org), works on the seals database with both the Byzantine Studies program and the Museum; his PhD thesis was on late Byzantine cities and their economies.
Download the October 2011 NewsletterByzantine Theatron: Of Mice and Muses
On 29 July 2010 dramatized readings of satirical theatron pieces of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were performed in Lovers’ Lane Pool (and afterwards the Orangerie) together with some parodic musical pieces. Three summer fellows and a reader were instrumental. Meg Alexiou, who was working on her translation and commentary on the four Poor Prodromos poems, provided scenes from three, dealing with husband-wife relations, monastic abuses, and the fate of the underpaid intellectual. Przemyslaw Marciniak, who was working on a translation and commentary of three twelfth-century dramatia offered translations of episodes from two: the sale of Homer in a celebrity auction, and the death of Kreillos in Theodore Prodromos’s War of Cat and Mice. Alexander Lingas, who has been working on his book on Byzantine music, offered a nonsense introit, a Psellos piece on monastic abuses, and a phlebotomological ode. Andrew Walker White acted as dramaturg as well as making available his translation of a whole dramation by Michael Haplucheir, which picks up on the theme of the impoverished scholar. Summer fellows and staff provided a chorus of slaves, mice and muses.
The program, texts with introductions, photographs both in rehearsal and in performance record the event.