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NEWSLETTER 47: DECEMBER 2005
CONTENTS
1.
New Executive
2.
Secretary and Communications
3.
New Web Site Address
4.
Subscriptions
5.
Forthcoming Conferences: Australia
6.
Forthcoming Conferences: International
7.
Conference Report: CISH
8.
Byzantina Australiensia
9.
Recent Publications
10.
NEER
11.
Next Newsletter
Appendix
I: AABS Executive
Appendix
II: Web address for previous Newsletters
In mid-2005, the new Executive elected at the General Meeting of the last biennial AABS conference (Melbourne, 13-15 August 2004) took office. The current Executive is as follows (full contact details appear in Appendix 1):
President:
Associate Professor Lynda Garland
Treasurer:
Dr Bronwen Neil
Secretary:
Ms Vicki Petrakis
Immediate
Past President: Associate Professor
John Melville-Jones
Other
Committee Members: Professor Pauline
Allen (previous past president and Byzantina Australiensia distribution)
Dr
Andrew Gillett (Newsletter)
Dr
Felicity Harley
Dr
Ann Moffatt
Dr
Geoff Nathan (2007 AABS conference)
Professor
Alanna Nobbs
Mr
Andrew Stephenson (Web site)
Our thanks go to the outgoing office holders, and in particular to Associate Professor John Melville-Jones for his energetic tenure as President.
2. SECRETARY AND COMMUNICATIONS
Dr Felicity Harley was elected as Secretary and undertook the secretarial duties from July to December 2005, but unfortunately circumstances have necessitated that she step down from that position. The AABS Executive is very grateful to Felicity and to her predecessor as Secretary, Dr Kathleen Hay, for their services, and to Vicki Petrakis for agreeing to be co-opted into this position.
Correspondence to AABS should be sent via the Secretary at:
Ms
Vicki Petrakis
Department
of Ancient History, Division of Humanities
Macquarie
University
NSW
2109 Australia
Fax:
+61-2-9850 8240
Email:
vicki.petrakis@students.mq.edu.au
Please note that the Web address for AABS has changed. The Web address (for information about previous and forthcoming AABS conferences, Byzantina Australiensia publications, AABS research, and earlier Newsletters) is now:
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~byzaus
Payment of annual subscriptions to AABS would be appreciated. Current rates are:
One
year membership: full rate ($15), student/unemployed ($10)
Two
year membership: full rate ($30), student/unemployed ($20)
Payment, by cheque (to Australian Association for Byzantine Studies) or credit card, may be made to the Treasurer, Dr Bronwen Neil, at:
Dr
Bronwen Neil, Treasurer, AABS
Post:
Centre for Early Christian Studies
Australian
Catholic University
PO
Box 456
Virginia,
QLD 4014
Fax:
07-3623 7348
Email:
b.neil@mcauley.acu.edu.au
5. FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES: AUSTRALIA
i. AABS Biennial Conference, 2007
The next biennial conference of the Association will be held at the University of New South Wales, 1-4 February 2007. The organisers of the conference are Dr Geoff Nathan and Dr Vicky Panayotopoulou-Doulaveras, and the theme will be "Culture and Imperium."
A
Call for Papers and further details will be sent out during 2006.
For enquiries:
Dr
Geoff Nathan: g.nathan@unsw.edu.au
Dr
Vicky Panayotopoulou-Doulaveras: v.doulaveras@unsw.edu.au
ii. "The Reign of Justinian and Theodora" Conference
A conference on "The Reign of Justinian and Theodora" will be held at Macquarie University, 14-15 October 2006. The organiser is Dr Ken Parry. The conference will coincide with a photographic exhibition entitled "City of Constantine through the Ages" on display in the University Library.
Further
details will be sent out during 2006. For enquiries:
Dr
Ken Parry: kendee@bigppond.com
6. FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES: INTERNATIONAL
28-30 April 2006. "Becoming Byzantine: Children and Childhood in Byzantium," a Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Symposium, will be held at the Freer/Sackler Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. The co-symposiarchs are Arietta Papaconstantinou, Univ. of Paris, and Alice-Mary Talbot, Dumbarton Oaks. The program will explore "Definitions and Representations," "The Facts of Life," "Cultural and Material Environment," and "Comparisons with Western Medieval Childhood." Contact: Polly Evans, Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Studies Program (http://www.doaks.org/conferences.html).
July 2006. "Constantine and the Late Roman World," a 5 day international interdisciplinary conference organised by the University of York and the Yorkshire Museum to mark the 1700th Anniversary of the elevation of Constantine I as emperor, in York in 306. Contact Dr Guy Halsall (grwh2@york.ac.uk)
21-26 August 2006. Twenty-first International Congress of Byzantine Studies, at the University of London. Convenor (for academic questions): Anthony Bryer, Ctr. for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, Univ. of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, U.K. (Bryer@compuserve.com). Contact: Karen Wraith, 12 Mushroom Field, Kingston by Lewes, East Sussex BN7 3LE, U.K. (kwraith@wraithconf.f9.co.uk).
7.
CONFERENCE REPORT: CISH:
AABS
AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF HISTORICAL SCIENCES (CISH)
(CISH
- AHA - UNSW - IAEB - AABS - ASCS - ANZAMEMS - NEER acronym fest)
During early July, the Australian Historical Association (AHA) and the University of New South Wales (UNSW) hosted the 2005 quinquennial meeting of the world's largest international historical forum, the International Congress of Historical Sciences/Congrès International des Sciences Historiques (CISH). CISH has held international congresses for over eighty years; the 2005 meeting was the first held in the southern hemisphere. Professor Martyn Lyons of UNSW was the Congress organiser. Over 1,500 speakers presented at the meeting.
In addition to sessions organised by the CISH international executive and Congress organising committee, a number of other international historical bodies regularly hold symposia at the CISH meetings, as International Affiliated Organisations (IAOs) of CISH, in order to integrate their research fields with the wider historical community. The International Association for Byzantine Studies/Association Internationale pour les Études Byzantines (AIEB), of which AABS is an affiliate, is one of these bodies, and IAEB and AABS jointly sponsored a day session at the meeting, on Friday 8 July.
In the integrative spirit of CISH, the day session was organised as a joint meeting between several Australasian pre-modern historical associations: AABS, the Australia and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (ANZAMEMS), and the Australasian Society for Classical Studies (ASCS). Each association was asked to nominate several speakers, who were asked to address the current position of research in their fields. Although a number of individuals are members of more than one of these four Australian historical associations (AHA, AABS, ANZAMEMS, and ASCS), and there have long been informal links between them, this was their first formal joint meeting. AIEB was represented by Professor Evangelos Chrysos of the University of Athens, ex officio a voting member of the CISH committee. The day session, organised by Andrew Gillett, was entitled: "Antiquity Now. New Histories: Classical, Medieval, Byzantine, and Early Modern." It was well attended by both Australian and visiting overseas academics, members of the public, and, pleasingly, by a significant number of post-graduates.
Following are the papers presented:
"Antiquity Now. New Histories: Classical, Medieval, Byzantine, and Early Modern"
Social Structures
Professor
Beryl Rawson (ASCS, Australian National University)
"The
Future of 'The Family' in Studies of the Social and Cultural History of
the Ancient Roman World"
Professor
Tim Parkin (ASCS, University of Queensland)
"Recent
Trends in the Study of Ageing and Death in the Ancient Roman World"
Identity and Alterity
Associate
Professor John Melville-Jones (AABS, University
of Western Australia)
"Byzantine
Identity from AD 324 to AD 1453"
Dr
Megan Cassidy-Welch (ANZAMEMS, University
of Melbourne)
"Identity
and Difference in the Medieval West: Current Approaches"
Professor
Charles Zika (ANZAMEMS, University of Melbourne)
"Recent
Approaches to the Impact of Reformation Religion: Marginals and Outsiders"
Positioning Disciplines
Professor
Evangelos Chrysos (AIEB, University of Athens)
"Byzantine
Studies: Today and Tomorrow"
Dr
Pam Sharpe (ANZAMEMS, University of Western
Australia)
"The
Network for Early European Research (NEER)"
Historiography
Professorial
Fellow Roger Scott (AABS, university of Melbourne)
"Towards
a New History of Byzantine Literature: The Case of Historiography"
Unfortunate circumstances prevented Associate Professor Iain Spence (ASCS, University of New England) from attending to present his paper, "Military History in Ancient Greek Studies."
The quality of the papers was extremely high, and as an overview of 'where disciplines are,' the day was highly successful. While presenters addressed the nature of work within their own fields and their own research, the papers grouped as 'Social Structures,' 'Identity,' and 'Historiography' brought out methodological issues or paths of enquiry that were of immediate relevance to researchers in other fields, as was evident in the vigorous discussions after each paper. Discussion concerning the exploitation of new ranges of source-types, and the conceptual frameworks for approaching social phenomena; and the application of theoretical models of Alterity and Narratology to pre-modern societies and sources, raised issues of interest to many of the session attendees. From a different perspective, Professor Chrysos delivered a highly informative sketch of how one field of pre-modern research, Byzantine Studies, has developed on an international basis for over a century, and how it has negotiated changing national and intellectual agenda; while Dr Sharpe's introduction to the current NEER project discussed current support for Australian pre-modern scholars 'pooling' research resources (more on NEER in section 10 of the Newsletter, below). The day was intended to be not only a display to Australian modern historians of the vitality of pre-modern scholarship within Australia, but also to act as an interchange of current ideas from cognate and parallel disciplines, and it fulfilled this role valuably.
During the session, Professor Chrysos circulated a letter and attached petition list, on behalf of AIEB and CISH, urging the University of Melbourne Faculty of Arts to recreate the position in Byzantine Studies formerly held by Professorial Fellow Roger Scott. Professor Chrysos has earlier campaigned successfully for several Byzantine Studies positions in Europe. His motion was greatly appreciated and the petition enthusiastically signed. (Professor Stuart Macintyre of the University of Melbourne Faculty of Arts has since replied to acknowledge the interest of the international Byzantine community in the fate of the Melbourne position).
One unfortunate glitch in advertising affected the session: it was intended that the Program for the whole Congress would include full details of the sessions of the International Affiliated Organisations such as AIEB. In the event, the program only listed the IAOs, without giving details of papers and speakers, which had the unfortunate effect of limiting awareness of the day session and its speakers to Congress attendees other than AABS, ANZAMEMS, and ASCS members. The Congress organisers have apologized to all IAOs for this error.
The organiser would like to thank both the presenters and the attendees of the session, and the executives of the participating Associations, and hopes that it will promote further interchange amongst Australian Classical, Medieval, Byzantine, Early Modern, an Modern researchers.
The latest two volumes in the series Byzantina Australiensia:
Volume
14:
Erotokritos,
by Vitsentzos Kornaros (Byzantina Australiensia 14; Melbourne, 2004)
ISBN
1-876503-1228 ISSN 0725-3079 xxxviii + 220 pp.; soft cover.
A
translation with introduction and notes by Gavin Betts, Stathis Gauntlett
and Thanasis Spilias.
Aust.
& NZ Aus$36.00; all other countries Aus$48.00
During
the later years of the Venetian occupation of Crete (1211-1669) the island
enjoyed the intellectual and cultural stimulus of the Renaissance.
This bore fruit not only in the work of painters such as Dominikos Theotokopoulos,
alias El Greco, but also in poetry, where Vitsentzos Kornaros composed
the most important work of early modern Greek literature, Erotokritos.
Written c. 1600, this romance takes over the theme of a minor French poem,
Paris
et Vienne of Pierre de la Cypède, and puts it in a Hellenic
setting where knights, both Greek and foreign, come to joust in an imaginary
pre-Christian Athens. It is here presented for the first time in
a complete English prose translation with a scholarly introduction and
notes.
Volume
15:
Feast,
Fast or Famine: Food and Drink in Byzantium, ed. by W. Mayer and S.
Trzcionka (Byzantina Australiensia 15; Brisbane, 2005)
ISBN
1 876503 18 1 ISSN 0725-3079 ix + 216 pp.: soft cover
Aust.
& NZ Aus$44.00; all other countries Aus$49.90
In
recent decades there has been an increasing interest in the study of food
and drink in the ancient, Mediaeval and Byzantine worlds and of their supply
and consumption. This volume presents selected papers from the biennial
conference of the Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, which was
held at the University of Adelaide, 11-12 July 2003. The theme was
food and drink in Byzantium. Published selectively in the present
volume, the papers of the conference are augmented by contributions from
international scholars. While some papers address the use of food
directly (children's diet, fasting) or tangentially (in love spells), or
discuss philosophical approaches towards food (vegetarianism), other papers
in this volume examine the topic from another perspective: the role and
perception of food and drink - and their consumption - in society.
Yet others examine issues of supply (military logistics) and the role it
played in shaping Byzantium. This volume will appeal to readers interested
in the history of food, in late antique and Byzantine society, in Byzantine
rhetoric, in magic in late antiquity and in the Jews in early Byzantium.
Orders for all Byzantina Australiensia volumes may be sent to:
Centre
for Early Christian Studies
Australian
Catholic University
PO
Box 456, Virginia, Queensland 4014, Australia
Tel:
+ 61 7 3623 7308
Fax:
+61 7 3623 7348
email:
early.christian@mcauley.acu.edu.au
Further
details and a downloadable order form are available on the AABS web site
at:
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~byzaus/bap.htm#orders
Members may note the forthcoming publication of this teaching resource, jointly produced by AABS president Lynda Garland:
Matthew
Dillon and Lynda Garland, Ancient Rome: A Sourcebook (Palgrave Macmillan;
forthcoming January 2006) ISBN 0415224594
A
companion volume to the highly successful and widely-used Ancient Greece:
Social and Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Socrates.
For further information, contact Palgrave Macmillan (Laura Davies), tel. (02) 9285 9227, fax (02) 9285 9290, email: laura.davies@macmillan.com.au
10. NEER: Network for Early European Research
Members should be aware of opportunities for research collaboration, and for research training for postgraduate research students, made available by the Network for Early European Research (NEER), the ARC-funded program. Post-graduate students in particular may wish to avail themselves of the recently-launched program, E-Consult, which makes scholars from around Australia available for consultation and advice for postgraduate researchers.
NEER
Recently established, NEER brings together Australian scholars with interests in 'Early European Research,' very broadly defined. In addition to contributing towards a 'critical mass' of pre-modern scholarship within Australia, NEER aims to provide research support for postgraduate students by facilitating their access to this network.
Technically, the time span is ca. 400 to 1750, and the bulk of scholars work in the medieval and early modern periods. But participants spill over at both chronological ends, and the remit of the project is to be inclusive (e.g. some Ancient History postgraduate students working in Republican Rome have participated in NEER activities). More importantly, most of the participants are involved in one or the other of the four NEER Research Themes (below), and can offer 'transferable training' in the theoretical or methodological approaches involved in those themes.
NEER has defined four Research Themes, around which its program of conferences and other activities will cluster. These are:
-
Cultural memory
-
Social fabric
-
Science, medicine and environment
-
Early European/Australasian connections.
Postgraduate Support from NEER: E-Consult
NEER aims to support postgraduate research students in three main ways:
- by providing subsidies to attend its conferences
- by arranging seminars specifically aimed at providing training in specialist research skills ('Postgraduate Advanced Training Seminars' or PATS)
- through E-Consult, a network of NEER participants, who are available for postgraduate students to contact (via a NEER protocol) in order to seek assistance with their research. The E-Consult program has just been launched.
Through E-Consult, postgraduate researchers and Early Career Researchers can contact (via email) NEER participants who have volunteered to offer research advice. The NEER site lists these participants and their areas of interest (disciplinary, temporal/geographic, theoretical). The aim of this service is to help postgraduate students overcome the 'tyranny of distance' to make contact with scholars who may be able to 'value add' to their local supervisory advice -- the sort of interactions which occur sporadically at conferences. I imagine that it could be particularly useful for postgraduates who find that someone, albeit working in a different time-period or geographical location, shares a similar theoretical or methodological interest into which they can offer insight and direction.
Web Site
The NEER web site, with fuller details of E-Consult procedures, PATS, NEER participants, and other information:
http://www.neer.arts.uwa.edu.au
Contributions for the next newsletter are welcome. Please send them to:
Dr
Andrew Gillett
Department
of Ancient History, Division of Humanities
Macquarie
University
NSW
2109 Australia
Email:
andrew.gillett@humn.mq.edu.au
(Please
note new email address; messages sent to earlier email addresses may not
be relied on to be forwarded.)
President:
Associate
Professor Lynda Garland
School
of Classics and History
University
of New England
Armidale
NSW 2351
Tel:
+61-2-6773 3236
Fax:
+61-2-6773 3520
Email:
ldillon@metz.une.edu.au
Secretary:
Ms
Vicki Petrakis
Department
of Ancient History, Division of Humanities
Macquarie
University
NSW
2109 Australia
Fax:
+61-2-9850 8240
Email:
vicki.petrakis@students.mq.edu.au
Treasurer:
Dr
Bronwen Neil
Centre
for Early Christian Studies
Australian
Catholic University
PO
Box 456
Virginia,
QLD 4014
Ph.
+61-07 3623 7263
Fax:
+61-7-3623 7348
Email:
b.neil@mcauley.acu.edu.au
Immediate
Past President:
Associate
Professor John Melville-Jones
Department
of Classics and Ancient History
University
of Western Australia
35
Stirling Highway
Crawley
WA 6009
Tel:
+61-8-6488 2164
Fax:
+61-8-6488 1182
Email:
jrmelvil@cyllene.uwa.edu.au
Other Committee Members:
Professor
Pauline Allen (previous past president and
Byzantina Australiensia distribution)
Centre
for Early Christian Studies
Australian
Catholic University
PO
Box 456
Virginia
OLD 4014
Tel:
+61-7-3623 7235
Fax:
+61-7-3623 7348
Email:
P.Allen@mcauley.acu.edu.au
Dr
Andrew Gillett (Newsletter editor)
Department
of Ancient History, Division of Humanities
Macquarie
University
NSW
2109 Australia
Tel:
+61-2-9850 9966
Fax:
+61-2-9850 8240
Email:
andrew.gillett@humn.mq.edu.au
Dr
Felicity Harley
School
of Art History, Cinema, Classics & Archaeology
Old
Quadrangle
Parkville
VIC 3010
Email:
feli7@lycos.com
Dr
Ann Moffatt
Classics,
School of Language Studies
Australian
National University
Canberra
ACT 0200
Tel:
+61-2- 6125 2901
Email:
ann.moffatt@anu.edu.au
Dr
Geoff Nathan (2007 AABS conference)
School
of History
University
of New South Wales
NSW
2052 Australia
Tel.
+61+2+9385 8014
Fax:
+61+2+9385 1251
Email:
g.nathan@unsw.edu.au
Professor
Alanna Nobbs
Department
of Ancient History, Division of Humanities
Macquarie
University
NSW
2109 Australia
Tel:
+61-2-9850 8844
Fax:
+61-2-0850 8240
Email:
a_nobbs@hotmail.com
Mr
Andrew Stephenson (Web site)
Information
Policy and Cultural Collections
University
of Melbourne Library
Parkville,
Victoria, Australia 3010
Tel:
+61 3 8344 9702
Email:
andrewws@unimelb.edu.au
APPENDIX II: WEB ADDRESS FOR PREVIOUS AABS NEWSLETTERS
Copies of previous AABS Newsletters numbers 36 (1998) to 46 (2004) can be viewed at the AABS Web site:
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~byzaus/nletter.htm