I’m traveling today, so the the picks are a bit more spartan than usual, but there are always things worth reading on the so-called internets.
At the end of the page, you’ll find the program for today’s colloquium at Dumbarton Oaks. You can read my paper here.
- Modern Greek Studies and Archaeology.
- Humans are not beetles.
- Women’s Golf and the Transformation of College Sports.
- An oddly fascinating history of F1 onscreen graphics.
- A cool watch story.
- Free poetry for the season.
- What I’m reading.
- What I’m listening to: Jaimie Branch, Fly or Die II.

The Insular World of Byzantium
Program
Friday, November 15
8:30am Morning registration and coffee
9:00 Welcome (Anna Stavrakopoulou, Dumbarton Oaks)
9:15 Introduction (Luca Zavagno and Nikolas Bakirtzis)
Chair: Luca Zavagno
9:30-10:00 Salvatore Cosentino (Università di Bologna)
Pillars of Empire: The Economic Role of the Big Mediterranean Islands from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages
10:00-10:30 Sarah Davis-Secord (University of New Mexico)
Encounters on the Edge of the Empire: Muslims and Christians in Byzantine Sicilian Hagiography
10:30-11:00 Q&A Session
11:00-11:15 Coffee Break
11:15-11:45 Joanita Vroom (Leiden University)
From Euboia to Cyprus: Byzantine Trade in Context
11:45-12:15 Nikolas Bakirtzis (The Cyprus Institute)
Islands as Deserts: Monastic Practice, Patronage, and Control
12:15 – 12:45 Q&A Session
12:45 – 2:30 Lunch Break
Chair: Nikolas Bakirtzis
2:30 – 3:00 William Caraher (University of North Dakota)
An Island Archaeology of Early Byzantine Cyprus
3:00-3:30 Luca Zavagno (Bilkent University)
“A Lost World That Never Died”: Urban Landscapes in the Byzantine Tyrrhenian in the Passage from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages
3:30-4:00 Q&A Session
4:00-4:15 Coffee Break
4:15-4:45 Jonathan Shea (Dumbarton Oaks)
Ruling the Islands of Byzantium: Evidence for Administration and Government in the Sigillographic Material
4:45-5:00 Q&A Session
5:00-5:30 Final discussion and concluding remarks