The World of Byzantium

In this course we shall explore the world of Byzantium from the founding of New Rome to Ottoman times. Caught between the East and West, the culture of Byzantium inherited the ancient worlds of Greece, Rome, and Jerusalem, nurturing many a modern ideology, conflict, and identity. We explore Byzantium through its history, texts, and art. Surveys of representative periods in Byzantine history will accompany topical investigation of themes including: the foundation and history of Constantinople itself, Iconoclasm, the Crusades, medieval Christianity and Islam, Byzantine court life, concepts of gender, self, and sexuality, book culture and revivals of learning, the development of Byzantine architecture, the Palaiologan "Renaissance," and the continued influence of and attitudes towards the Byzantine inheritance in both Western and Eastern Europe after 1453.