Byzantine Culture in Translation – Registration Closes 15 November

Byzantine Culture in Translation
Australian Association for Byzantine Studies 18th Biennial Conference
University of Queensland
28-30 November 2014

Registration closes 15 November; please register your attendance now if you have not already done so.

Full details at http://www.aabs.org.au/conferences/18th

Byzantine culture emanated from Constantinople throughout the Middle Ages, eastwards into Muslim lands and central Asia, north into Russian, Germanic and Scandinavian territories, south across the Mediterranean into Egypt and North Africa and westwards to Italy, Sicily and the other remnants of the western Roman Empire. Byzantine culture was translated, transported and transmitted into all these areas through slow or sudden processes of permeation, osmosis and interaction throughout the life of the Empire, from the fourth century to the fifteenth and far beyond. Various literary aspects of Byzantine culture that were literally translated from Greek into the local and scholarly languages of the Medieval West and Muslim Middle East include dreambooks, novels, medical and scientifica texts and works of Ancient Greek literature. Yet translation was a phenomenon that stretched far beyond texts, into the areas of clothing and fashion, the visual arts (especially icons) and architecture, military organisations, imperial court ceremonial, liturgical music and mechanical devices. This conference celebrates all aspects of literary, spiritual or material culture that were transported across the breadth of the Empire and exported from it. Papers are welcome on all aspects of Byzantine culture that exerted some influence – whether lasting or fleeting – and were translated into non-Greek-speaking lands, from the early Byzantine period to the present day.

Confirmed speaker:

  • Maria Mavroudi, University of California – Berkeley

Convenors:

  • Dr Amelia Brown, The School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, University of Queensland
  • Dr Bronwen Neil, Centre for Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic University

The Biennial General Meeting of the Association will take place during the Conference: http://www.aabs.org.au/conferences/18th/biennial-general-meeting-2014