Is Byzantine Studies a colonialist discipline? Rather than provide a definitive answer to this question, this book defines the parameters of the debate and proposes ways of thinking about what it would mean to engage seriously with the field’s political and intellectual genealogies, hierarchies, and forms of exclusion.
In this volume, scholars of art, history, and literature address the entanglements, past and present, among the academic discipline of Byzantine Studies and the practice and legacies of European colonialism. Starting with the premise that Byzantium and the field of Byzantine studies are simultaneously colonial and colonized, the chapters address topics ranging from the material basis of philological scholarship and its uses in modern politics to the colonial plunder of art and its consequences for curatorial practice in the present. The book concludes with a bibliography that serves as a foundation for a coherent and systematic critical historiography. Bringing together insights from scholars working in different disciplines, regions, and institutions, Is Byzantine Studies a Colonialist Discipline? urges practitioners to reckon with the discipline’s colonialist, imperialist, and white supremacist history.
In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Andrea Myers Achi, Nathanael Aschenbrenner, Bahattin Bayram, Averil Cameron, Stephanie R. Caruso, Şebnem Dönbekci, Hugh G. Jeffery, Anthony Kaldellis, Matthew Kinloch, Nicholas S. M. Matheou, Maria Mavroudi, Zeynep Olgun, Arietta Papaconstantinou, Jake Ransohoff, Alexandra Vukovich, Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, and Arielle Winnik.
List of Illustrations Preface: The Historical Conjuncture Introduction: For a Critical Historiography of Byzantine Studies Benjamin Anderson and Mirela Ivanova Part 1: How Is Byzantine Studies (Re)Produced? 1. Hieronymus Wolf’s Silver Tongue: Early Byzantine Scholarship at the Intersection of Slavery, Colonialism, and the Crusades Nathanael Aschenbrenner and Jake Ransohoff 2. Byzantine Archaeology: Teaching the Tenth and the Twentieth Centuries Hugh G. Jeffery 3. Byzantium in Exile Şebnem Dönbekci, Bahattin Bayram, and Zeynep Olgun Part 2: How Is Byzantium (Re)Produced? 4. Methodological Imperialism Nicholas S. M. Matheou 5. The Price of Admission Anthony Kaldellis 6. Byzantine Studies: A Field Ripe for Disruption Averil Cameron 7. Subaltern Byzantinism Maria Mavroudi Part 3: How Are Byzantine Texts (Re)Produced? 8. Byzantine and Western Narratives: A Dialogue of Empires Arietta Papaconstantinou 9. The Ethnic Process Alexandra Vukovich 10. Publication and Citation Practices: Enclosure, Extractivism, and Gatekeeping in Byzantine Studies Matthew Kinloch Part 4: How Is Byzantine Art (Re)Produced? 11. The South Kensington Museum, Byzantine Egyptian Textiles, and Art-Historical Imperialism Arielle Winnik 12. From Ethnographic Illustration to Aphrodisian Magistrate: Changing Perceptions of an Early Byzantine Portrait Stephanie R. Caruso 13. Expanding and Decentering Byzantium: The Acquisition of an Ethiopian Double-Sided Gospel Leaf Andrea Myers Achi 14. Equity, Accessibility, and New Narratives for Byzantine Art in the Museum Elizabeth Dospěl Williams A Collective Bibliography Toward a Critical Historiography of Byzantine Studies List of Contributors Index
Benjamin Anderson is Associate Professor of the History of Art and Classics at Cornell University. He is the author of Cosmos and Community in Early Medieval Art and coeditor of Antiquarianisms: Contact, Conflict, Comparison, and The Byzantine Neighbourhood: Urban Space and Political Action. Mirela Ivanova is Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Sheffield. She is the author of Inventing Slavonic: Cultures of Writing Between Rome and Constantinople.
Reviews for Is Byzantine Studies a Colonialist Discipline?: Toward a Critical Historiography
With this slim yet rich and thoughtful volume, the field of Byzantine studies has finally joined the project of excavating the colonialist, imperialist, and white supremacist foundations of the modern academia. This collection of essays does more than merely remedy a scholarly lacuna; it sounds an urgent call to action that is bound to reverberate in the years to come, generating further self-reflection, debate, and dialogue. -Ivan Drpic, author of Epigram, Art, and Devotion in Later Byzantium
