NEW VIDEO
ICMA VIEWPOINTS BOOK LAUNCH
IS BYZANTINE STUDIES A COLONIALIST DISCIPLINE? TOWARD A CRITICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY, EDITED BY BENJAMIN ANDERSON AND MIRELA IVANOVA
ONLINE, 15 SEPTEMBER 2023, 12:00-1:00 PM ET
WITH BENJAMIN ANDERSON, MIRELA IVANOVA, ROLAND BETANCOURT, ELEANOR GOODMAN, NICHOLAS S. M. MATHEOU, ELIZABETH DOSPĚL WILLIAMS, AND ALEXANDRA VUKOVICH
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. ICMA Books | Viewpoints aims to engage with and instigate new conversations, debates, and perspectives not only about medieval art and visual-material culture, but also in relation to the critical practices employed by medieval art historians. Books will typically be data-rich, issue-driven, and even polemical. The range of potential subjects is broad and varied, and each title will tackle a significant and timely problem in the field of medieval art and visual-material culture. The Viewpoints series is interdisciplinary and actively involved in providing a forum for current critical developments in art historical methodology, the structure of scholarly writing, and/or the use of evidence. Eleanor Goodman is the Executive Editor at Penn State University Press, and Roland Betancourt is the Series Editor.
The video is available to watch on the Special Online Lectures page.