Byzantine Matters

Cameron, an Oxford professor of Byzantine history and long an influential voice in her field, surveys the state of the discipline and its place in the modern university, addressing both the perceptions of those outside the field and the flashpoints and productive veins of research that predominate within. Marginalized in departments where modern European or, less frequently, classical Greek and Roman history hold sway, Byzantium is “relegated to the sphere of negativity,” a pale counterpart to its classical predecessors and lacking the exotic appeal of Arabia or points farther east. In five concise and penetrating essays, Cameron reflects on the approaches and pressing questions in areas ranging from religion to political science to art. She analyzes how closely associated Byzantium is with modern-day Greece and with Orthodox Christianity, seeing greater diversity than is often assumed. Of art, where the impact of Byzantium is perhaps most readily felt in the wider world, she sees a disconnect between how pieces were perceived by their original audiences and what stands out about them now: “[C]ontemporaries often praised the realism of objects when it is their very unfamiliarity and apparent stylization that many modern viewers find attractive.” Cameron writes primarily for her colleagues, showing them how they can raise their profiles and thrive in what is necessarily a highly interdisciplinary space. (May)