50th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Medieval Institute, Kalamazoo, MI, May 14–17, 2015
Sessions or papers of interest to Byzantinists:
Thursday 10:00 am
In Honor of Annemarie Weyl Carr I: Women as Artists and Patrons (Session 14)
Unexpected Statements of Female Power: Case Studies from Crete and Cyprus
Cristina Stancioiu, College of William & Mary
Lillian P. Bliss as a Patron of Byzantine Art
Helen C. Evans, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Re-Purposing West for East at Resafa: A Woman Patron in the Christian Middle East
Glen Peers, Univ. of Texas–Austin
Female Sovereignty and Strategic Art Making: Crossing Cultural and Religious Borders in Medieval Iberia
Therese Martin, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
Bodies that Matter I: Miracles, Manuscripts, and Medicine (Session 34)
Daemons and Aliens: Supernatural Occurrences in Early Byzantine Plague Narratives
Scott Hieger, Univ. of Dallas
Early Medieval Europe I (Session 38)
Where Have All the Olives Gone? The Changing Fortunes of the Olive in Byzantium, 600–1000 A.D.
Alexander Olson, Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison
Thursday 3:30 pm
Mary in the Medieval Franciscan Tradition (Session 131)
Saint Bernardine of Siena and the Byzantine Context of His Mariology
Christiaan W. Kappes, Byzantine Catholic Seminary of SS. Cyril and Methodius
Thursday 7:30 pm
Theory and Practice in Medieval Contexts (Session 173)
Neptic Prayer in Early Medieval Monasticism: The Byzantine Ascetic Theme of Watchfulness in the Rule of Saint Benedict
Daniel VanderKolk, Independent Scholar
Friday 10:00 am
Church, Mission, Enculturation, and Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Session 178)
The Conversion of Armenia: Re-Evaluating Byzantine Missions across the Imperial Frontier
Alexander Angelov, College of William & Mary
Catalogus Verborum: Catalog, List, and the Spilling-Over of Learning (Session 190)
Will and Ekphrasis in Byzantine Mystical Discourse
Henry M. Bowles, Harvard Univ.
Friday 3:30 pm
Fluctuating Networks: The Constructive Role of Broken Bonds in the Medieval Mediterranean and Beyond (Session 315)
The Peasant Parvenu: Social Climbing in Tenth-Century Spain
Robert Portass, School of History and Heritage, Univ. of Lincoln
Noble Women and Their (Broken) Allegiances in Late Byzantium
Petra Melichar, Slavonic Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
Studios: A Network of Alternative Power in Ninth-Century Constantinople
Arthur Robert Westwell, Univ. of Cambridge
Saturday 10:00 am
Byzantium and the Middle Ages: Bosom Buddies or Uneasy Allies? (A Roundtable Discussion) (Session 343)
A roundtable discussion with Anthony Kaldellis, Ohio State Univ.; Deborah M. Deliyannis, Indiana Univ.–Bloomington; Rebecca Darley, Warburg Institute, Univ. of London; and Demetrios Tonias, Independent Scholar.
Gendering Emotion in Medieval Thought (Session 368)
The Gender of Emotion: The Case of Byzantine Eunuchs
Shaun Tougher, Cardiff Univ.
Saturday 1:30 pm
Urban and Sacred Topography of Prilep: A Byzantine Town in the Balkans (Session 417)
Sivec Marble, the Prilep Region, and the Early Byzantine Empire: A Case Study for Integration
Philipp Niewöhner, Dumbarton Oaks
Patronage and Art in Thirteenth-Century Prilep
Petrula Kostovska
A City under a Holy Mountain: Prilep and the Monastery Treskavec
Svetlana Smolčić Makuljević
From Artistic Excellence to Marginalization: Traveling Painters from Mount Grammos in the Region of Prilep
Theocharis Tsampouras, Princeton Univ.
Money in the Middle Ages (Session 432)
Modern Money in a Pre-modern Economy: Fiduciary Coinage in Early Byzantium
Andrei Gândilâ, Univ. of Alabama–Huntsville
East Roman Imperial Spending and the Eleventh-Century Crisis
Lee Mordechai, Princeton Univ.
War, Politics, and the Flow of Cash on the German-Czech-Polish Frontier
Lisa Wolverton, Univ. of Oregon
Saturday 3:30 pm
Epigrams on Art in Byzantium (Session 479)
Epigrams and the Placement of Names on Works of Art
Brad Hostetler, Florida State Univ.
Reading the Poetry of Sacred Interiors: Ekphrastic Epigrams in Early Byzantine Churches
Sean V. Leatherbury, Getty Research Institute
The Logistics of Writing Epigrams: “Producers” and “Products” in Later Byzantium
Foteini Spingou, Princeton Univ.
Sunday 10:30 am
Good Behavior/Bad Behavior: Asserting and Advocating Behavioral Norms in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Session 561)
Generals Gone Wild: Complaints about Byzantine Generals in the Sixth Century
David A. Parnell, Indiana Univ. Northwest