Past and Present: Cultural Politics in Byzantium and Beyond

Past and Present: Cultural Politics in Byzantium and Beyond
May 1-2, 2026

Convenors: Panagiotis Roilos and Dimiter Angelov

Friday, May 1
Fong Auditorium
Boylston Hall 110

9:20
Welcome 
ELIZABETH KAMALI, Chair of the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies
PANAGIOTIS ROILOS, Departments of Classics and Comparative Literature 
DIMITER ANGELOV, Department of History 

Keynote Address
Chair: DAN SMAIL, Harvard University

9:30–10:00
PETER FRANKOPAN, Oxford University
Byzantium, Global Connections, and the Politics of History
 

I. History and the Politics of Culture
Chair: PAUL KOSMIN, Harvard University

10:00–10:30
DIMITER ANGELOV, Harvard University
The Cultural Politics of Constitutional Imagination: Debating Tyranny in Byzantium
 

10:30–11:00
ZACHARY CHITWOOD, University of Munich
The Ruler and the Limits of the Law: New Insights on the Concept of Princeps Legibus Solutus from the Late Eleventh Century

II. Literature and Cultural Politics
Chair: ALEXANDER RIEHLE, Harvard University

11:00–11:30
BAUKJE VAN DEN BERG, Central European University 
Constructing Literary History: The Cultural Politics of Ancient Literature in Byzantium 

11:30–12:00
FILIPPOMARIA PONTANI, Ca' Foscari University
Praying in Ancient Greek Verse Across the Centuries
 

Lunch and Museum Visit

12:00 Lunch

1:00–2:00 

EURYDICE GEORGANTELI, Harvard University
Communicating Power: Byzantine Money and Cultural Politics, Art Study Center, Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street. Sign up here (maximum 16 participants)

III. The Cultural Politics of Christianization
Chair: CHARLES STANG, Harvard University

2:30–3:00
PANAGIOTIS ROILOS, Harvard University
The Cultural Politics of Allegorization: Christianizing the Hellenic Past in Byzantium

3:00–3:30
DEREK KRUEGER, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Suppressing Same-Sex Desire in Middle Byzantine Monastic Discourse

3:30–4:00 
FABIO PAGANI, Catholic University of America
Reconstructing or Reinventing the Past? Plato and Pletho
 

Coffee & tea
4:00–4:30 
 

IV. Art History and Cultural Politics: Beyond Byzantium 
Chair: CHRISTINA MARANCI, Harvard University

4:30–5:00
IOLI KALAVREZOU, Harvard University
The Cultural Politics of Visual Symbolism: Images of Controversies

5:00–5:30
ANTONY EASTMOND, The Courtauld Institute of Art
The Politics of Style in the Byzantine East

V. Lightning Talks
Chair: DIMITER ANGELOV, Harvard University

5:30
Presentations by graduate and undergraduate scholars

6:30
Reception in Ticknor Lounge, Boylston Hall

Saturday, May 2
History Department Seminar Room
Robinson Hall
35 Quincy Street
 

VI. The Greek Diaspora Before and After 1453
Chair: ANN BLAIR, Harvard University

10:00–10:30
JONATHAN HARRIS, Royal Holloway, University of London
The Dishypatos Family in Constantinople, Italy and France, c.1400-1496
 

10:30-11:00
NATHANAEL ASCHENBRENNER, Bard College
Cultural Commerce: Michael Apostoles and the Economy of Greek Letters in Post-Byzantine Europe
 

Chair: PANAGIOTIS ROILOS, Harvard University
11:00
Concluding roundtable discussion

With Special Thanks:
Dumbarton Oaks
Harvard Department of Classics
Harvard Department of History
Provostial Fund for the Arts and Humanities
The Standing Committee on Medieval Studies