Description: Worlds of Byzantium offers a new understanding of what it means to study the history and visual culture of the Byzantine empire during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Arguing that linguistic and cultural frontiers do not always coincide with political ones, it suggests that Byzantine studies should look not only within but also beyond the borders of the Byzantine empire and include the history of Christian populations in the Muslim-ruled Middle East and neighbouring states like Ethiopia and Armenia and integrate more closely with Judaic and Islamic studies. With essays by leading scholars in a wide range of fields, it offers a vision of a richly interconnected eastern Mediterranean and Near East that will be of interest to anyone who studies the premodern world.
Brief description: ELIZABETH S. BOLMAN is Elsie B. Smith Professor in the Liberal Arts and Professor of Art History at Case Western Reserve University. She engages with the visual culture of the eastern Mediterranean in the late antique and Byzantine periods and is best known for her work in Egypt.