The University of Edinburgh

Catastrophes and Memory (500-1500 CE): 4th Annual Edinburgh International Graduate Byzantine Conference

Nov 19 2020 - Nov 21 2020

The conference focuses on disasters (natural, manmade or “supernatural”) that shape historical memory and our understanding of the past, concentrating on the problematic relations between catastrophes and memory in Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine societies.

Keynote Speakers

Leslie Brubaker is Professor of Byzantine Art History, with particular interest in the cult of the Virgin, ‘iconoclasm’, the relationship between text and image, manuscripts, and gender. She is also Director of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, which is a unique research cluster with an international reputation, a thriving postgraduate community, and its own journal and two monograph series.

Antoine Borrut is Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of History at the University of Maryland. He specializes in early Islamic history and historiography and is currently working on two projects: the first focuses on the much-neglected genre of astrological histories and on the role of court astrologers in historical writing in early Islam, the second concentrates on the construction of early Islamic sites of memory and its impact on the making of an agreed upon version of the early Islamic past.

You can find the programme at the link below.

Programme - 4th Annnual LAIBS conference 2020 (118.22 KB Word)

Registration

A registration fee of £5 will be collected in order to support the continuation of this conference in future years, especially the ability to support the participation of international scholars. This payment will also give you access to discounts at University of Edinburgh Press. Register at the Eventbrite link. 

For any questions, please contact the conference committee: byzantine.pg@ed.ac.uk