HIST Semineri: “Beyond books: The Diagrammatic Mode in Byzantium”, Linda Safran, 18:00 31 Mart (EN)

Byzantium at Ankara (a joint project of the Bilkent Department of History and Hacettepe University, Department of Art History) is happy to announce the inaugural talk of the Spring 2021/22 Seminar Series entitled: “Beyond Books: the Diagrammatic Mode in Byzantium.”

Recording of our previous lectures can be found on our Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN6mx3xkQknph5pPwrodhrw).

Date: 31.03.2022
Time: 18.00 (Ankara Time Zone) via zoom.

***This is an online event. For further info and registration, please send an email to byzantiumatankara@hotmail.com

Title: “Beyond books: The Diagrammatic Mode in Byzantium”
Speaker: Prof. Linda Safran (Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto)

Abstract:

Beyond books: The Diagrammatic Mode in Byzantium:
Diagrams in manuscripts are easy to recognize, if not necessarily easy to describe. This talk considers diagrams outside of manuscripts and unaccompanied by lengthy texts. Such diagrams, as well as abstract ways of thinking diagrammatically—that is, in linear and geometrical terms, in three dimensions and not just two—were more widespread in the Byzantine visual landscape than has previously been noticed. I propose that this “diagrammatic mode” played a role in public life, helping to structure the Byzantines’ understanding of time and space, demonstrate harmonious relationships, and reify τάξις.

Biography

Linda Safran is a Research Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto. She holds a Ph.D in History of Art from Yale University. Her research interests are Byzantine and Mediterranean art and architecture, medieval studies, cultural history, material culture studies, archaeology of Southern Italy, Art History, and Jewish Art History.
Recent and forthcoming publications include: “La mise-en-page dei testi pubblici nel Salento medievale,” in “Gli uomini e le lettere: personaggi, testi e contesti della Terra d’Otranto di cultura bizantina,” ed. Alessandro Capone, special issue, Rudiae: Ricerche sul mondo classico, n.s. 3 (2017)[2018], 271–90; “Two Classrooms in China” (with Adam S. Cohen), Common Knowledge 24, no. 3 [“Symposium: In the Humanities Classroom, Part 2,” ed. Caroline Walker Bynum] (2018): 375–88; “Remembering the Jewish Dead in Medieval Apulia and Basilicata,” in Letters in the Dust, Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Culture and Religion, ed. Leonard Rutgers and Ortal-Paz Saar (Leuven: Peeters, 2020); “Four Inscriptions from Salento,” in Medieval Texts on Byzantine Art and Aesthetics, vol. 3, From Alexios I Komnenos to the Rise of Hesychasm (1081–ca. 1330), ed. Charles Barber and Foteini Spingou (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020); and “A Prolegomenon to Byzantine Diagrams,” in Visualization of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages, ed. Marcia Kupfer, Adam S. Cohen, and J. H. Chajes (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020).