Unless otherwise indicated, sessions and breaks will take place in Corpus Christi College.
Friday 17 March 2023
11.30-12.00 Opening statement
12.00-1.00 Inaugural lecture
Birgit Meyer – Catching up: Byzantine reverberations in the material study of religion
1.00-2.00 Lunch
2.00-3.30 Session 1: Objects in motion
Anne Lester – Beyond the Borders, Outside the Frame. Translating Presence from Byzantium to the West after 1204
Ivan Foletti – Beyond the Myth of Byzantium: Ritual Installations and Visual Concepts in Seventh-century Tsromi, Mren, and Talin
3.30-4.00 Tea and Coffee break
4.00-5.30 Session 2: Religion in 3D
Paroma Chatterjee – Statues and Sacred Icons in Constantinople: Movement, Naturalization, and Identity
David Frankfurter – Christian Figurines of Late Antiquity and Perceptions of Idolatry
7.00 Reception
Saturday 18 March 2023
9.00-11.00 Free communications Session 1, All Souls College
Barbara Crostini – The Dura Synagogue as Performative Space
Verena Fugger – The Holy Rider from the Artemision: New Considerations on the Cult of Saints in Early Byzantine Ephesus
Alexis Gorby – Sensing Death: Late Antique Sarcophagi in their Ritual Context
Paweł Nowakowski – “At the mines they built places of worship.” Material Evidence for Religious Activities at Quarries and Mines in late antique Asia Minor
María J. S. Vicent – Worship in the Stones of Santa María de Quintanilla de las Viñas. The Stonework and Carved Motifs Used for Liturgy in Late-Antiquity Hispania
Nadine Viermann – Relics in Translation: Holy Objects in Constantinople Between City Centre and Urban Periphery
Joaquin Serrano del Pozo – Processions with Holy Relics in the sieges of Constantinople (AD 626–1204)
Nila Namsechi – The Religious Built Environment of Byzantine Naples (ca. 650-1000)
11.00-11.30 Tea and Coffee break
11.30-1.00 Session 3: Religious landscapes
Myrto Veikou – Cavernous Landscapes in the Byzantine Aegean: a Discussion of Materialities of Cult and Sensorial Topologies
Troels M. Kristensen – Alahan: Religious Landscapes and the Scales of Mobility
1.00-2.00 Lunch
2.00-3.30 Session 4: Things without context
Regula Schorta – Eastern Silks in Western Treasuries
Béatrice Caseau – Sensoriality and Materiality in Byzantine Religious Rituals
3.30-4.00 Tea and Coffee break
4.00-5.30 Session 5: Things and their context
Brigitte Pitarakis – Contextualizing the Bronze Object: The Performative Power of Decoration and the Ritual Experience
Sean Leatherbury – Materialising Motion in the Early Byzantine Church
6.00 SPBS Executive Meeting, All Souls College
7.30 Dinner, All Souls College
Sunday 19 March 2023
9.00-10.30 Free communications 2, All Souls College
James Cogbill – Spoken Word and Material Object in Monastic Installation Ceremonies at the Theotokos Evergetis
Maximilian Lau – Images and Realities of the Ecumenical Councils in the Twelfth Century
Patrick Martin – Material theology: Spatial and Temporal Coherence in Middle Byzantine Last Judgements
Dorota Zaprzalska – Assemblage Theory and Icons: Composite Icons as an Assemblage within an Assemblage
Gang Wu – Possible Buddhist Influence on the Byzantine Silk Industry
Anna Muthesius – ‘Silken relic’ Material Culture East and West: a Sign of Common Humanity Across Time and Civilisations?
10.30-11.00 Tea and Coffee break
11.00-12.30 Session 6: Spatial approaches to religion
Ann Marie Yasin – Sacred Space Social-Time Machines: Accumulation Value and Material Affordances
Francesca Dell’Acqua – Putting on the Lord. The bosom as a locus for private devotion (seventh–ninth centuries)
12.30-1.00 SPBS AGM
1.00-2.00 Lunch
2.00-3.00 Closing lecture: Material religion in writing
Ildar Garipzanov – Weather Control and Manuscripts’ Margins in the Early Medieval West
Closing and announcement of the 55th Spring Symposium
Material Religion in Byzantium and Beyond 