Byzantium & Friends
by Byzantium & Friends
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On the show
From 10 epsHost
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Recent episodes
155. The Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, with Nicole Eddy
Apr 23, 2026
1h 05m 32s
154. How and why we teach Roman history, with Beth Digeser
Apr 9, 2026
1h 04m 04s
153. Three heresiologists of the twelfth century: Zigabenos, Kamateros, and Choniates, with Alessandra Buccosi, Niccolò Zorzi, Marco Fanelli, and Ottavia Mazzon
Mar 26, 2026
1h 34m 47s
152. Heresiology in the twelfth century, with Alessandra Bucossi
Mar 12, 2026
56m 26s
151. East Roman archaeology: goals and challenges, with Marica Cassis
Feb 26, 2026
1h 07m 04s
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| Date | Episode | Topics | Guests | Brands | Places | Keywords | Sponsor | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4/23/26 | 155. The Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, with Nicole Eddy✨ | medieval textsliterature+3 | Nicole Eddy | Dumbarton OaksDumbarton Oaks Medieval Library | — | Dumbarton Oaksmedieval literature+3 | — | 1h 05m 32s | |
| 4/9/26 | 154. How and why we teach Roman history, with Beth Digeser✨ | pedagogyRoman history+4 | Beth Digeser | University of California, Santa Barbara | Romelate antiquity | Roman historypedagogy+5 | — | 1h 04m 04s | |
| 3/26/26 | 153. Three heresiologists of the twelfth century: Zigabenos, Kamateros, and Choniates, with Alessandra Buccosi, Niccolò Zorzi, Marco Fanelli, and Ottavia Mazzon✨ | heresiologytwelfth century+3 | Alessandra BuccosiNiccolò Zorzi+2 | Ca' Foscari University of VeniceUniversity of Padua | — | heresiologyZigabenos+5 | — | 1h 34m 47s | |
| 3/12/26 | 152. Heresiology in the twelfth century, with Alessandra Bucossi✨ | heresiologytwelfth century+3 | Alessandra Bucossi | Ca' Foscari University | ConstantinopleLatins+1 | heresytwelfth century+5 | — | 56m 26s | |
| 2/26/26 | 151. East Roman archaeology: goals and challenges, with Marica Cassis✨ | archaeologyEast Roman world+3 | Marica Cassis | University of CalgaryArc Humanities Press+1 | East Roman World | archaeologyEast Roman world+5 | — | 1h 07m 04s | |
| 2/12/26 | 150. Why were pseudo-Arabic inscriptions placed on churches in Greece?, with Alicia Walker✨ | pseudo-Arabic inscriptionsOrthodox culture+3 | Alicia Walker | Bryn Mawr CollegeCambridge University Press+1 | Greecemonastery of Hosios Loukas | pseudo-Arabicinscriptions+4 | — | 1h 02m 28s | |
| 1/29/26 | 149. The Classical Near East, with Kevin van Bladel✨ | Classical Near Eastmedieval Near Eastern cultures+3 | Kevin van Bladel | Yale UniversityWorlds of Byzantium: Religion, Culture, and Empire in the Medieval Near East | — | Byzantiumclassical traditions+3 | — | 1h 05m 07s | |
| 1/15/26 | 148. The survival of esoteric academic fields, with Jana Matuszak and Petra Goedegebuure✨ | esoteric academic fieldsspecialized language skills+4 | Jana MatuszakPetra Goedegebuure | University of ChicagoByzantine Studies+2 | — | esoteric fieldsacademic survival+5 | — | 1h 18m 46s | |
| 1/1/26 | 147. How the ninety percent experienced the Roman economy, with Kim Bowes✨ | Roman economyeconomic history+4 | Kim Bowes | University of PennsylvaniaPrinceton University Press+1 | — | Roman economyKim Bowes+6 | — | 59m 07s | |
| 12/18/25 | 146. Ezana of Aksum, the first Christian king in Africa, with Aaron Butts✨ | ChristianityAksum+4 | Aaron Butts | University of HamburgEzana of Aksum: The First Christian African King+1 | AksumEthiopia+1 | EzanaAksum+7 | — | 1h 00m 55s | |
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| 12/4/25 | 145. Seeing into the minds of others, with Ellen Muehlberger | A conversation with Ellen Muehlberger (University of Michigan) about how some people in late antiquity tried to model, confirm, or interpret what they thought was going on in the minds of others. We briefly talk about the genre of the lecture book, and then about classroom exercises in impersonation (were they exercises in empathy or not?) and breaking into houses to see what people had in their private quarters. The conversation is based on Ellen's recent book Things Unseen: Essays on Evidence, Knowledge, and the Late Ancient World (University of California Press 2025). | 1h 02m 41s | ||||||
| 11/20/25 | 144. The two millennia of Roman history, with Ed Watts | A conversation with Ed Watts (University of California, San Diego) about his recent book, The Romans: A 2,000 Year History (Basic Books 2025), which covers two millennia of Roman history, down to 1204 AD. We talk about questions of scale in writing history, of continuity and discontinuity in the Roman experience, and what enabled this polity to last for so long. What insights does studying its second millennium (at Constantinople) cast on its first (at Rome), and vice versa? | 1h 07m 37s | ||||||
| 11/6/25 | 143. Coping with earthquakes in the churches of Constantinople, with Mark Roosien | A conversation with Mark Roosien (Yale University) about the earthquakes that struck Constantinople in late antiquity and about how emperors and the people of the City reacted to them in the moment. We focus on the church liturgies that commemorated and tried to make sense of them. The conversation is based on Mark's book Ritual and Earthquakes in Constantinople: Liturgy, Ecology, and Empire (Cambridge University Press 2024). | 57m 16s | ||||||
| 10/24/25 | 142. The decline of animal sacrifice in the late Roman world, with James Rives | A conversation with James Rives (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) on the history of ancient animal sacrifice in the Roman world. We focus on its decline and eventual demise in the third and fourth centuries. Animal sacrifice was caught up in the conflicts between the Roman emperors and the Christian Church, which endowed it with an importance it had not had before. The conversation is based on James' recent book Animal Sacrifice in the Roman Empire (31 BCE-395 CE): Power, Communication, and Cultural Transformation (Oxford University Press 2024). | 1h 02m 08s | ||||||
| 7/24/25 | 141. The Renaissance and Byzantium are characters in the same play, with Ada Palmer | A conversation with Ada Palmer (University of Chicago) about the invention of the idea of the Italian Renaissance and the functions that it serves in the western historical imagination. "Byzantium" is a similarly invented category that often works in tandem with "the Renaissance" to mark good and bad moments in the history of culture. The conversation is based on Ada's recent book, Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age (University of Chicago Press, 2025). She is also an award-winning science-fiction author and one of the most successful and popular teachers at the University of Chicago, featured in the New York Times for the mock papal elections through which she teaches students about the inner workings of Renaissance politics. | 1h 19m 08s | ||||||
| 7/10/25 | 140. A newly identified portrait of Konstantinos XI Palaiologos (1448-1453), with Anastasia Koumousi | A conversation with Anastasia Koumousi (Director of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Achaea, Greek Ministry of Culture) about the recently identified portrait of the last emperor of the Romans in Constantinople, Konstantinos XI Palaiologos, in a monastery church in the northern Peloponnese. The discussion is based on her article ‘Παλαιά Μονή Ταξιαρχών Αιγιαλείας: η αναχρονολόγηση της ίδρυσης στους μεσοβυζαντινούς χρόνους και η προσωπογραφία του τελευταίου βυζαντινού αυτοκράτορα,’ in M. Xanthopoulou et al., eds., Το αρχαιολογικό έργο στην Πελοπόννησο 3 (Kalamata 2024) 747-759. Images of this portrait can be found online here and here and here. | 54m 32s | ||||||
| 6/26/25 | 139. Captivity and enslavement in the late medieval Aegean, with Alasdair Grant | A conversation with Alasdair Grant (University of Hamburg) about the captivity and enslavement that many Greeks (Romaioi) experienced in the late medieval period, a period of state collapse during which they were subject to Italian and Turkish raids and attacks. We talk about the differences between captivity and enslavement, the prospects for being ransomed, and the religious basis of one's legal status. The conversation is based on Alasdair's book, Greek Captives and Mediterranean Slavery, 1260-1460 (University of Edinburgh Press 2024), which is freely available online here. | 1h 04m 26s | ||||||
| 6/12/25 | 138. Romeyka, a parallel branch of Greek surviving in northeastern Turkey, with Ioanna Sitaridou | A conversation with Ioanna Sitaridou (University of Cambridge) about a Greek language (Romeyka) still spoken in northwestern Turkey, though now endangered, whose grammar retains interesting archaic features. The ancestors of its current speakers were not exchanged in 1923 because they were Muslim; the primary language in their communities today is Turkish. We talk about Romeyka itself, why it was not impacted by the standardization of modern Greek, and the ethical and political care that field-work must take. See here for the Romeyka Project. For Ioanna's study of its grammar, see her article 'The Romeyka Infinitive: Continuity, Contact and Change in the Hellenic Varieties of Pontus,' Diachronica 31:1 (2014) 23-73. | 1h 01m 56s | ||||||
| 5/29/25 | 137. Conspiracy theories and the deep state, now and then, with Winston Berg | Winston Berg is a political scientist (University of Chicago) who studies modern American conspiracy theories about politics and the deep state; his dissertation studied the movement known as QAnon. Given our political moment, I thought it would be interesting to discuss with him the different contours and valences that conspiracy theories and deep state notions took in the east Roman polity and in the United States. Check out Winston's recent article 'Origins of the “Deep State” Trope,' Critical Review 35:4 (2023) 281-318. | 1h 15m 56s | ||||||
| 5/15/25 | 136. The federal assault on American research universities, with Clifford Ando | A conversation with Cliff Ando (University of Chicago) about the revenue models of American research universities and the dangers to advanced research posed by the freezes recently placed on federal funding. While the biggest cuts are to scientific and medical research, the humanities will also be significantly impacted. Cliff has published a number of op-ed articles on what is happening and how universities should respond; see, for example, here. | 1h 03m 54s | ||||||
| 5/1/25 | 135. Latin literature in late antiquity, with Gavin Kelly | A conversation with Gavin Kelly (University of Edinburgh) about the corpus of Latin literature from antiquity down to the present, where we discuss the reasons why most scholars focus on the period before 200 AD, why late antiquity is overlooked (despite having some first rate authors), and what can be done about that. Similar issues, we find, emerge from the study of Greek literature too. The conversation is based on Gavin's recent study of 'Periodisations' in R. K. Gibson and C. L. Whitton, eds., The Cambridge Critical Guide to Latin Literature (Cambridge 2024) 97-157. | 54m 38s | ||||||
| 4/17/25 | 134. Peer-review: the good, the bad, and the amusing, with Tina Sessa and Marion Kruse | A conversation with Tina Sessa (The Ohio State University) and Marion Kruse (University of Cincinnati) on the process of peer-review in the humanities: what it's for, how it can be done well, and where it can go awry. The conversation is based on many decades of collective experience of peer-review, on all sides of the process. | 1h 13m 26s | ||||||
| 4/3/25 | 133. Taste, meals, and food culture, with Adam Morin | A conversation with Adam Morin (University of Ioannina) about categories of taste, the meal structure, and the food and ingredients that east Romans ate. What foods were prized and what looked down upon? How do we know what they ate? What do we know about individual preferences? The conversation is based on Adam's dissertation, Food and Food Culture in the Byzantine Empire, Seventh to Fifteenth Centuries (Queen's University, 2024). | 55m 59s | ||||||
| 3/20/25 | 132. Who was Allah before Islam?, with Ahmad Al-Jallad | A conversation with Ahmad Al-Jallad (The Ohio State University) about the languages and inscriptions of pre-Islamic Arabia, our main contemporary source for life, death, and worship before the time of the Prophet Muhammad. We talk about field surveys in search of inscriptions and what they tell us about Allah and other Arabian deities in the early centuries of the first millennium. You can find his work on academia.edu (here) and some of his lectures are posted online. The article on which this conversation is based has not yet been published (its provisional title is "Ancient Allah: An Epigraphic Reconstruction"). You can access the Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia (OCIANA) here. | 1h 13m 54s | ||||||
| 3/6/25 | 131. To Miklagarðr and back again: Varangians return from Constantinople, with Sverrir Jakobsson | A conversation with Sverrir Jakobsson (University of Iceland) about the experiences of Northmen -- especially Varangians -- who traveled to Constantinople and the south and returned home with stories, swords, riches, and prestige. The conversation is based on Sverrir's book The Varangians: In God’s Holy Fire (Palgrave 2020). Instead of my usual intro, Sverrir and I discuss some odd parallels in the histories of Greece and Iceland. | 57m 09s | ||||||
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Chart Positions
2 placements across 2 markets.
Chart Positions
2 placements across 2 markets.