Dr Panagiotis Manafis

• PhD (Ghent University)
• MA (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)
• BA (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)

Panagiotis Manafis secured his PhD at the University of Ghent, Belgium, after obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in Greek Philology and Literature and a master’s degree in Byzantine Philology and Literature at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

Panagiotis Manafis’ research interest lies in the middle Byzantine literature, with particular focus on the manuscript transmission of texts.

From 2013 to 2017 he was a PhD researcher in the ERC project ‘Memory of Empire: the Post-Imperial Historiography of Late Antiquity’ led by Prof. Dr. Peter Van Nuffelen at the History Department of Ghent University. It has been producing a database inventorising all historiographical works of Late Antiquity from 300 until 800 AD. In this framework, Panagiotis Manafis worked on early and middle Byzantine texts, collaborating to the edition of fragmentary historians and conducting personal research focused on Byzantine historical excerpts.

His PhD thesis is concerned with manuscripts transmitting collections of historical excerpts. He treats these collections of excerpts in their entirety, that is, as cultural forms in their own right and study them as autonomous pieces of literature. In particular, the thesis studies how a Byzantine sylloge of excerpts was redacted and on the types of changes the re-working of selected passages involved. In this respect, he provides the editio princeps of two collections of excerpts: a) the selection of excerpts from Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History in the so-called Epitome (a seventh-century sylloge of historical excerpts) b) the 52 excerpts from Agathias’ Historiae transmitted in the codex Vaticanus gr. 96 of the Excerpta Salmasiana.

• Textual transmission of Byzantine hagiographical and historiographical texts
• Political and cultural history of Middle Byzantine period
• Byzantine compilation literature
• Byzantine history

Find out more - our PhD Theology and Religion  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Codex Zacynthius Project - a new edition, transcription and translation of the earliest New Testament catena manuscript using multispectral images.

CATENA - a five-year project on Greek New Testament commentary manuscripts funded by the European Research Council.

ERC Project ‘Memory of Empire: the post- imperial Historiography of Late Antiquity’, Ghent University (November 2013 – November 2017).