16-18 April 2010
University of New England
Plenary speakers:
Dr Tom Brown, Reader, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, The University of Edinburgh
Professor John Melville-Jones, Classics and Ancient History, University of Western Australia
Dr Shaun Tougher, Senior Lecturer in Ancient History, Cardiff University (to be confirmed)
Gender and class were key social indicators in Byzantine society, as in many others. However, masculine and feminine roles were not always clearly defined, while eunuchs made up a 'third gender'. Social status was also in a state of flux, as much linked to patronage networks as to wealth, as the Empire came under a series of external and internal pressures. This fluidity applied in ecclesiastical as much as in secular spheres. We welcome papers on all aspects of the theme of gender and/or class from the 4th to the 15th centuries, from the Greek East to the westernmost reaches of the Byzantine Empire.
Contributors are invited to interpret the theme broadly and we welcome submissions from all fields. Both scholars with academic affiliation and working independently, as well as postgraduate students, are encouraged to apply.
Registration is now open: download and post the registration form or register online.
The Conference will be held 16-18 April 2010 at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia.
Please submit abstracts of up to 500 words for 30-minute papers (including 10 minutes of questions) by 1 April to:
Associate Professor Lynda Garland
School of Humanities
University of New England
Armidale
New South Wales 2351
tel +61 2 6773 3236
fax +61 2 6773 3520
PLENARY SPEAKERS
Dr Tom Brown, Reader, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, The University of Edinburgh
The View from the Provinces: Gender and Society in Byzantine Italy from Justinian to Robert Guiscard
After working as a Research Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks and Birmingham, Tom Brown taught medieval studies at the Australian National University in Canberra for two and a half years. Since 1980 he has taught medieval history at the University of Edinburgh, where he is now Reader. He was the founding editor of the journal Early Medieval Europe. Among his many publications he is perhaps best known for the book Gentlemen and Officers: Imperial Administration and Aristocratic Power in Byzantine Italy 554-800 (London, 1984). His most recent publications include 'The Role of Arianism in Ostrogothic Italy: The Evidence from Ravenna' in The Ostrogoths from the Migration Period to the Sixth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective (Boydell Press, 2007), 'Byzantine Italy, 680-876' in J. Shepard (ed.), The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire (Cambridge, 2008 and 'Lombard Religious Policy in the Late Sixth and Seventh Centuries: The Roman Dimension' in Giorgio Ausenda, Paolo Delogu and Chris Wickham (eds), The Langobards (Boydell, 2009).
Professor John Melville-Jones, Classics and Ancient History, University of Western Australia
The Deplorable Life and Disgusting Death of Andronicus I Comnenus
Professor John Melville-Jones (FRNS, FAHA) is the Winthrop Professor in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Western Australia. Over the course of a distinguished career spanning five decades, he has made a major contribution to Byzantine Studies in Australia. His research specialisations are in the areas of Greek numismatics and the history of the later Byzantine empire, particularly its relations with Venice. He was President of the Australian Association for Byzantine Studies from 2000 until 2005.
For his outstanding work in these areas he has received two Greek awards: the Aristotle Award (1999) and the Onassis Foundation Senior Visiting Scholar (2002). In 2009 he worked in the State Archives in Venice as a guest of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, collecting material which documents the relationship between Venice and Constantinople in the 15th century.
A patron of the Perth Numismatic Society, he has published a variety of material relating to ancient Greek and Latin texts which provide information about coinage and its use in the ancient world. He will soon publish the second of two volumes of collected sources documenting the Venetian occupation of Thessalonica in 1423-1430. Some of his most recent publications are:
J.R. Melville-Jones and D. Gilliland Wright, The Greek Corespondence of Bartolomeo Minio, Dispacci from Nauplion (1479-1483) (Padova: Unipress, 2008)
J.R. Melville-Jones, Testimonia Numaria Volume II (London: Spink, 2007)
J.R. Melville-Jones, 'Venetian History and Patrician Chroniclers' in Chronicling History: Chroniclers and Historians in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007).
Dr Shaun Tougher, Senior Lecturer in Ancient History, Cardiff University (to be confirmed)
source: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~byzaus/conferences/16th2010/
