*The meeting has been postponed until the next academic year*

 

In conjunction with the Classical Association of Scotland (Edinburgh and South-East Centre)

 

Information to follow shortly.

Patricia Ebrey: The Resilience of Chinese Empires: How the Song Survived the Jurchen Invasion Anna Shields: Rewriting the Tang Dynasty Poetic Past:  Epistemic Hybridity in the Records of Events Concerning Tang Poetry 唐詩紀事

Approaching ‘history as literature’ has allowed byzantinists to pinpoint and examine the narrative conventions (largely derived from a common rhetorical education) that shaped Byzantine narratives of the past. ... This paper discusses different approaches to the frontier space conveyed in the eleventh-century Byzantine historical accounts of Michael Psellos, Michael Attaleiates, and John Skylitzes.

Over this lunch-time research meeting, John F. Haldon, Shelby Cullom Davis ’30 Professor of European History and Professor of Byzantine History and Hellenic Studies, emeritus, shares insights, experiences, and ideas from the various projects on comparative empire studies he was involved with in recent years.

The practice of ‘circulating scrolls’ developed during the mid-Tang as a means for civil service examination candidates to acquire the patronage they required in order to pass. The ‘cover letters’ that accompanied these circulated portfolios of written work offer a unique glimpse into candidates’ attempts to translate the cultural capital accumulated through years of classical learning into social and political relationships.