Why the West Invented "Byzantium"
Advertisement
Lecture by Anthony Kaldellis
Professor of Classics, University of Chicago
Lowenstein 12th Flour Lounge, Fordham Lincoln Center Campus
Starting in the early Middle Ages and continuing down to the twentieth century, Western observers constructed a hostile caricature of the east Roman empire. It was an oriental land of decadence, luxury, and sophistication, whose people were servile, effeminate, and treacherous. They were not real Romans, as they believed, but shifty “Greeks”; their Christian faith was deviant, as they did not obey the pope or were mired in superstition; and their spoken language was a degenerate version of ancient Greek. Many of these stereotypes were subsequently encoded into the field of Byzantine Studies, and scholars are still struggling to correct them. But why did such an image come about at all? What ideological purpose did it serve in the long history of close interactions between the West and Constantinople? Why does “Byzantium” exist at all and who benefits from it?
***Anthony Kaldellis*** is a professor of Classics at the University of Chicago. He has published widely on the history, culture, and literature of Byzantium, ranging from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. His works include a new, comprehensive history of the eastern Roman empire: The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium (Oxford, 2023). Most recently he has published a new history of the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and a study of western perceptions of Byzantium from late antiquity to World War II (Phantom Byzantium). He has translated many medieval Greek authors, expecially historians such as Prokopios, Attaleiates, and Laonikos Chalkokondyles, and is also the host of the academic podcast “Byzantium & Friends,” going strong since 2019.
Professor of Classics, University of Chicago
Lowenstein 12th Flour Lounge, Fordham Lincoln Center Campus
Starting in the early Middle Ages and continuing down to the twentieth century, Western observers constructed a hostile caricature of the east Roman empire. It was an oriental land of decadence, luxury, and sophistication, whose people were servile, effeminate, and treacherous. They were not real Romans, as they believed, but shifty “Greeks”; their Christian faith was deviant, as they did not obey the pope or were mired in superstition; and their spoken language was a degenerate version of ancient Greek. Many of these stereotypes were subsequently encoded into the field of Byzantine Studies, and scholars are still struggling to correct them. But why did such an image come about at all? What ideological purpose did it serve in the long history of close interactions between the West and Constantinople? Why does “Byzantium” exist at all and who benefits from it?
***Anthony Kaldellis*** is a professor of Classics at the University of Chicago. He has published widely on the history, culture, and literature of Byzantium, ranging from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. His works include a new, comprehensive history of the eastern Roman empire: The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium (Oxford, 2023). Most recently he has published a new history of the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and a study of western perceptions of Byzantium from late antiquity to World War II (Phantom Byzantium). He has translated many medieval Greek authors, expecially historians such as Prokopios, Attaleiates, and Laonikos Chalkokondyles, and is also the host of the academic podcast “Byzantium & Friends,” going strong since 2019.
Advertisement
Where is it happening?
Fordham University Lincoln Center Campus, 98 W 62nd St,New York, New York, Manhattan, United States
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.
Host or PublisherPublic Orthodoxy
