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The Department of Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology (CAHA) and the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies (CBOMGS) at the University of Birmingham are delighted to announce the Department’s autumn research seminar series.

The series includes seminars co-hosted with the Centre for the Birmingham Research Institute for History and Cultures (BRIHC), the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham, and the University of Oxford.

Each seminar has an individual registration link, and you will receive the zoom link once your registration is approved by the host. Please register in good time and with the email address that you intend to log in on the day of the seminar.

Polyxeni Adam-Veleni (General Director of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Greece): ‘Metro excavations in Thessaloniki: An appointment with the history of the city’

Location: Zoom

Contact: Dr Theodora Hadjimichael (t.hadjimichael@bham.ac.uk)

Georgi Parpulov (Birmingham), with Clark Bates, Gavriil Boutziopoulos, Panagiota Mantouvalou, Jacopo Marcon, and Andrew Patton: ‘Greek Manuscripts in Birmingham: A New Catalogue’

Location: Zoom

Contact: Dr Daniel Reynolds (d.k.reynolds@bham.ac.uk).

Part of the Biblical Studies Seminar of the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham

Mark Letteney (USC) and Matthew Larsen (Copenhagen): ‘Seeing Incarceration in Antiquity: Two Case Studies’

Location: Zoom

Contact: Dr Theodora Hadjimichael (t.hadjimichael@bham.ac.uk)

Israeli Forum of Early Medieval Studies Lecture

Leslie Brubaker (Birmingham): ‘Looking for the Poor in Byzantium’

Location: Zoom

Contact: Dr Daniel Reynolds (d.k.reynolds@bham.ac.uk).

This seminar is part of the Biblical Studies Seminar of the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham, and is co-organised with the University of Oxford

Claire Bubb (NYU): ‘Editorial Power: Galen and his Manipulated Canon’

Location: Zoom

Contact: Dr Theodora Hadjimichael (t.hadjimichael@bham.ac.uk)

Roundtable discussion: ‘Landscape, Nature, and Environment’

Speakers: Henry Chapman (Archaeology, Birmingham), Andrew Fox (Classics, Nottingham), Ralph Fyfe (Geography-Archaeology, Plymouth), and Diana Spencer (Classics, Birmingham)

Richard Parkinson (Oxford): ‘Sinuhe, Sex and Snow: What Egyptology does with Poems’

Description: Ancient poems are often betrayed by modern academic study. The lecture will discuss issues arising from a project to write a reader’s commentary on the masterpiece of Ancient Egyptian poetry,  The Tale of Sinuhe, from a material philological perspective. What areas of a text’s life can a commentary include, and how can the commentator seek to capture a sense of poetry as well as the words preserved on the manuscripts?  In particular the role of visual culture and landscape will be considered, as featured in the account of Sinuhe’s flight from Egypt to the snows of the Levant, and the role of erotic desire in the poem. How can a commentary assist a modern audience to experience the emotional reality of an ancient poem—is philology enough?

Location: Zoom

Contact: Dr Theodora Hadjimichael (t.hadjimichael@bham.ac.uk)

Alfredo Calahorra Bartolomé (Madrid): ‘Keleusate: Ceremony and Architecture in the Great Palace of Constantinople’

Location: Zoom

Contact: Dr Daniel Reynolds (d.k.reynolds@bham.ac.uk).

Register for 24 November

Paul Christesen (Dartmouth): ‘Leisure, Luxury, Austerity, and Citizenship in Archaic and Classical Sparta’

Location: Zoom

Contact: Dr Theodora Hadjimichael (t.hadjimichael@bham.ac.uk)

Philip Booth (Oxford):'Romans, Egyptians, and the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople (717/8)’

Location: Zoom

Contact: Dr Daniel Reynolds (d.k.reynolds@bham.ac.uk).