Summer Institute: Visions of Identity and Salvation in the Eastern Roman Empire
Program Dates: July 17-July 28, 2023
This Summer Institute will examine the interdependent concepts of Roman identity and salvation in Byzantine history, starting with the foundation of Constantinople until her capture by the crusaders in 1204. Students will be exposed to a range of literary genres in primary sources (Greek and Latin, with modern translations). Passages from the Old and New Testament will be read alongside extracts from the Acts of the Ecumenical Councils, imperial legislation, universal chronicles, and prophecies. The reading assignments are designed to complement the standard historical and philological studies. In addition, students will receive training in scholarly digital tools and in Academic English. There will be visits to the National Library of Greece, where students will consult in situ Greek manuscripts that contain eschatological prophecies, and the Numismatic Museum of Athens, where students will study selected coins and seals. The interactive study of selected source materials will shed light on the constituent elements that shaped collective identities in the Byzantine Middle Ages and unveil their relation to competing visions of salvation that co-existed in the Christian Roman world.
Sessions will be conducted in English and will be held at the Princeton Athens Center, in-person (no zoom option).
Instructors
Panagiotis Theodoropoulos received his PhD from King’s College London in 2018. As postdoctoral fellow at the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University he pursued research on the formation of papal political authority during the seventh and eighth centuries. Currently, he is adjunct lecturer at the Department of History and Archeology of the University of Ioannina, offering courses on Byzantine history.
András Kraft received his PhD in Medieval Studies at Central European University (Hungary) in 2018 with a dissertation on “The Apocalyptic Horizon in Byzantium: Philosophy, Prophecy, and Politics During the Eleventh Through Thirteenth Centuries.” He held positions as Assistant Professor at the American University of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan) and as Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University. Currently, he is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at the University of Vienna. His research specializes in Byzantine intellectual history with a focus on philosophical and prophetic literature.
Graduate students at Princeton University and/or at Greek universities.
The following material should be combined into a single file and uploaded to the application form, which can be found here. All submitted material must be in English.
- a 1-page (500 words) statement of your research project and goals for this workshop.
- a current CV;
- contact information of a faculty advisor who may be contacted as a reference (no letter of recommendation is required with the initial application).
Questions: Please contact Chris Twiname at [email protected]
