Charis Messis reviews 'Masculinity in Byzantium, c.1000–1200: Scholars, Clerics and Violence', by Maroula Perisanidi @maroulix.bsky.social
academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...
@universitypress.cambridge.org
Fill out the Contact form on the website and we will send you the Zoom link. We look forward to e-meeting you!
We are pleased to announce the launch of the Byzantine Disability Hub, a scholarly space dedicated to exploring physical and mental difference in Byzantium. Everyone is warmly invited to join us for an informal online meeting with the Hub organisers on Thursday, February 26 at 6pm GMT / 1PM EST.
Isabella Lewis (@leedsims.bsky.social) writes our latest blog post about St Andrew the Fool. Looking at Andrew's hagiography from the 10c., Isabella explores the intersection of sexual violence and race in the Christian East #churchhistory #skystorians
eccleshistsoc.wordpress.com/2025/11/03/s...
Call for papaers poster. Medieval image of Hildegard of Bingen as header. Neurodivergent infinity loop behind text. Text reads: Call for Papers: International Medieval Congress 2026 Neurodivergent and Neuroqueer Temporalities Over the past decade, critical neurodiversity studies and neuroqueer theory have come to prominence. These new paradigms seek to explore differences in mind through an understanding that there are naturally diverse ways of being rather than through pathologisation. While the paradigms are beginning to be used in other academic disciplines, they are yet to be implemented in a significant way in medieval studies. This panel seeks to change this by encouraging medievalists to see the potentials in neuroqueer and neurodivergent scholarship and prompting discussion in these areas. This panel is requesting proposals for papers which examine aspects of medieval temporalities through a neurodivergent or neuroqueer lens. This includes, but is not limited to: • Application of contemporary neuroqueer or neurodivergent theory to medieval temporal concerns. • Examination of non-normative experiences of time, e.g. in mystical ecstasy. • Exploration of neuroqueer attitudes to normative lifecycles. • Examination of the effects of time and age on the mind in medieval texts. • Neurodivergent readings of medieval material relating to temporalities. Paper proposals should be under 200 words and accompanied by a short bio. Proposals should be sent to A.T.Paley1@leeds.ac.uk for the attention of Ash Paley and Daniel Coultas by 9am on Monday 15th September 2025.
Call for Papers: Leeds IMC 2026
Neurodivergent and Neuroqueer Temporalities
Deadline: Monday 15th September 9am
#CFP #IMC2026 #Medievalsky #Neurodiversity #Neuroqueer
One chapter of my book on Byzantine Masculinity is now available Open Access: eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/22... Have a read if you are interested in chronic illness, disability gain, or posthumanism. 😀
I've signed this: have you?
Screenshot of the cover page of part 2 of the report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence from the US Copyright Office.
The US Copyright Office has released its report on copyrightability and AI-generated works. The full report can be downloaded here:
www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright...
(Short answer: only works created by humans are copyrightable.)
#writingcommunity #publishing #ai #copyright #writing #tech
Important work going on in the face of serious attempts to erase it. Please share widely!
Always Here: Non-Binary Gender, Trans Identities, & Queerness in the Global Middle Ages (c. 250–1650) #MedievalSky
www.binghamton.edu/cemers/confe...
Sure! I can read Greek from all sorts of periods, so it should be fine. You can email the details here: m.perisanidi@leeds.ac.uk, if it’s easier.
I’m happy to do it, if you want to send me the details.
New article: Helen Gittos, "Sutton Hoo and Syria: The Anglo-Saxons Who Served in the Byzantine Army?." The English Historical Review (2025) [Open Access]
Oh wow! Thank you ☺️ I wish I spoke Russian. I’d love to learn it one day and do more with the overlap with Byzantium, including the idea of the fool, which is apparently relevant to this story. I wish the current political situation were more favourable too though 😥
It’s apparently a very famous story that has become proverbial!
The story I initially came across was a translation into Greek of the lazy version as an audiobook: youtu.be/7i_OYoKMFgo?... Although I wouldn’t want to teach my lo to wait for other people to improve her situation, this will surely make for some interesting discussions in a couple of years!
Apparently the story changes in film adaptations created during the Soviet regime replacing the lazy protagonist with a kind and brave representative of the ‘ordinary people’ oppressed by the king. For more, see intellectdiscover.com/content/jour...
Russian peasants belonged to their landlords, legally until 1861, but factually long afterwards, during collective farming under the Communist regime. At the time that the story was recorded, they had “no incentive to improve their material situation, no motivation to work harder or to work at all”.
Today I came across a fascinating Russian story about a lazy man who used a magic fish to make all his wishes come true and went unpunished. I found it so jarring, I read further to see how such a story could exist. According to an article, by Maria Nikolajeva it fits well its historical context.
Thank you ☺️
The book (and podcast) do not discuss celibacy/sex at all! I recommend listening to the conversation or even better reading the book 🥰
Nope, it's about Byzantium, where clerics could very well deploy what McNamara called "the most obvious biological attributes of manhood" 🙃
A podcast with Anthony Kaldellis about the masculinity of scholars and clerics in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the challenges and deficits that it faced, and the masculine capital that men in those occupations tried to amass and then spend. www.podbean.com/ew/pb-ttbmu-... #Byzantium
Ευχαριστώ! 🥰
Ever encountered a yellowish blob like this in a medieval book? It's a drop of candle wax. Yup, books were read at night back then, by candle light. (Owl disapproves. Hoo-hoo did that?)
Angers, BM, 162 (14th century). Digital pics: https://buff.ly/3VfChhJ.
My little girl sitting on her dad’s lap and reading my book.
The cover of my book: Masculinity in Byzantium, c. 1000-1200, including two miniatures: one of a warrior on a horse and one of a man holding a reed and a book.
Hard copies of my book are finally here along with the first book review by my 3-year old 😅! She has learnt the words “hagiography” and “hegemony” and is apparently finding the book hilarious 😊 www.cambridge.org/core/books/m...
Could you add me please? Historian of disability in Byzantium.
I’d love to be added! Thank you!
Newly arrived and excited to find you!
Bluesky academics, let's get to know each other! Quote this & tell me: 1) a project you are working on & 2) an odd idea/theory you aren't working on but keep thinking about.
1) a book on speech difference in Byzantium (c. 1000-1200)
2) different translations of Moana songs in French and Greek
