Research 

Our research covers the east Mediterranean, the Balkans and the Middle East across a wide range of disciplines, historical periods and divergent cultural traditions. We provide a stimulating and supportive research environment for postgraduate study.

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The Centre’s world-class publications include the journal Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies and the series Birmingham Modern Greek Translations  and Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Monographs

The Centre has hosted major international conferences and symposia, such as Imperial Legacies in Cross-Cultural Mediterranean Context (co-organized with the Research Centre for Anatolian Civilizations at Koç University, Istanbul), and regularly hosts the Byzantine Spring Symposium, initiated  at Birmingham by the founder of the Centre, Professor Anthony Bryer, in 1968. The most recent Symposia have been the 43rd, Byzantium behind the Scenes: Power and Subversion in March 2010; the 46th, Byzantine Greece: Microcosm of Empire? in March 2013; and the 50th Anniversary Symposium, Global Byzantium, in March 2017.  The conference proceedings are published by Routledge for the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies.  

Our staff publish a wide range of books, chapters and journal papers.  For more information on these please see the individuals' staff page.

Doctoral students at the Centre pursue innovative research in a variety of topics in Byzantine studies, Ottoman studies, and Modern Greek studies. They meet weekly in their dedicated research group, Gateway to the Eastern Mediterranean (GEM) and organise an international colloquium in late May, the annual Postgraduate Research Colloquium of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, where they and other postgraduates across the world have the opportunity to present their work. This is the oldest Byzantine postgraduate conference in Europe. 

The most recent 18th Annual Colloquium was held in June 2017 on the topic of Internationalism: From Late Antiquity to Modernity, with speakers from across Europe and North America. Doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows normally also run a series of sessions at the Leeds International Medieval Congress, the largest medieval conference in the UK.

Students have also initiated large collaborative research projects, such as the Syropoulos Project on the translation and study of the key Byzantine account of the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-39), published in the Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Series. Graduate alumni and alumnae of the Centre hold prestigious academic and other professional positions throughout the world.

Postdoctoral students associated with the Centre include Marie Curie Fellows and British Academy Postdoctoral Fellows.

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