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UE264 - (Hi)stories of Byzantium
Lieu et planning
-
Campus Condorcet (Bât. RechercheNord)
Cours des humanités 93300 Aubervilliers
1er semestre / bimensuel (1re/3e/5e), jeudi 15:30-18:30
du 29 octobre 2026 au 4 février 2027
Nombre de séances : 8
Description
Dernière modification : 11 mai 2026 13:55:05
- Type d'UE
- Séminaires DE/MC
- Disciplines
- Anthropologie historique, Histoire, Signes, formes, représentations
- Page web
- -
- Langues
- anglais
- L’enseignement est uniquement dispensé dans cette langue.
- Mots-clés
- Anthropologie historique Archives Codicologie Culture Culture matérielle Droit, normes et société Ecclésiologie Écriture Empire Fait religieux Geste technique Histoire Histoire du livre Moyen Âge Orientalisme Paléographie
- Aires culturelles
- Byzantines (études) Europe centrale et orientale Europe sud-orientale Transméditerranée
Intervenant·e·s
- Filippo Ronconi [référent·e] directeur d'études, EHESS / Centre d'études en sciences sociales du religieux (CéSor)
The seminar will be structured in two main parts.
The first part, comprising two sessions, will address a series of foundational questions designed to introduce participants to Byzantine culture and society, with particular attention to the ways in which written culture — manuscripts, documents, and public and private inscriptions — enables us to reconstruct, interpret, and characterise the different historical phases of the Byzantine Empire and to engage with some of its defining themes. These include the imperial and patriarchal institutions, the role of written law and custom in the regulation of social life, the interplay between theology and politics, the place of monasticism within Byzantine society, the spread of literacy and its broader cultural significance, and Byzantium's cultural and political relations during the middle period with Western Europe, the Arab world, the steppe peoples, Northern Europe, and the Caucasus.
The second and larger part of the seminar will be devoted to a study of Photius of Constantinople — scholar, senior imperial official, and patriarch during the second half of the ninth century. Our approach will focus on the ways in which this pivotal figure of the so-called "first Byzantine humanism" gained access to the books that formed the basis of his cultural capital. We will enter, so to speak, into his workshop, examining how he conceived and produced his writings, and seeking out the individuals — secretaries, assistants, colleagues, and pupils — as well as the materials and practices of reading and writing on which he drew throughout his long career.
We will further analyse the deeper significance of Photius' major works, deliberately moving away from the idealising perspective that has too often cast him as a disinterested lover of learning driven by pure intellectual curiosity. We will show, instead, that the composition of each of his works responded to specific, contingent personal and political imperatives, unfolding across a remarkably eventful life. This approach will lead us, in particular, to a radical reappraisal of the traditional understanding of his two most celebrated texts, the Bibliotheca and the Mystagogy. Drawing on the analysis of their earliest manuscripts, we will demonstrate that, in the form in which they are conventionally imagined, neither ever truly existed as such in Photius' own conception.
The seminar will close with a broader reflection on the function and figure of the author in the Byzantine and medieval world — an attempt to emancipate this figure from the modern and contemporary notion of authorship, which too often serves as a distorting lens through which we approach those who composed texts in the Middle Ages.
One or two sessions will also be devoted to visits to libraries and museums in Paris.
Le programme détaillé n'est pas disponible.
Master
-
Séminaires de recherche
– Arts, littératures et langages
– M1/S1-M2/S3
Suivi et validation – semestriel bi-mensuelle = 6 ECTS
MCC – exposé oral -
Séminaires de recherche
– Histoire - Histoire du monde/histoire des mondes
– M1/S1-M2/S3
Suivi et validation – semestriel bi-mensuelle = 6 ECTS
MCC – exposé oral -
Séminaires de recherche
– Histoire - Histoire et sciences sociales
– M1/S1-M2/S3
Suivi et validation – semestriel bi-mensuelle = 6 ECTS
MCC – exposé oral -
Séminaires de recherche
– Sciences des religions et société-Sciences sociales des religions
– M1/S1-M2/S3
Suivi et validation – semestriel bi-mensuelle = 6 ECTS
MCC – exposé oral -
Séminaires de recherche
– Sciences sociales de la santé et des sciences - Histoire des sciences, des techniques et des savoirs
– M1/S1-M2/S3
Suivi et validation – semestriel bi-mensuelle = 6 ECTS
MCC – exposé oral
Renseignements
- Contacts additionnels
- -
- Informations pratiques
filippo.ronconi@ehess.fr
- Direction de travaux des étudiants
By appointment (on the Campus each tuersday and thursday, or online on other days)
- Réception des candidats
By appointment (on the Campus each tuersday and thursday, or online on other days)
- Pré-requis
None (all Latin and Greek texts will be translated)
Dernière modification : 11 mai 2026 13:55:05
- Type d'UE
- Séminaires DE/MC
- Disciplines
- Anthropologie historique, Histoire, Signes, formes, représentations
- Page web
- -
- Langues
- anglais
- L’enseignement est uniquement dispensé dans cette langue.
- Mots-clés
- Anthropologie historique Archives Codicologie Culture Culture matérielle Droit, normes et société Ecclésiologie Écriture Empire Fait religieux Geste technique Histoire Histoire du livre Moyen Âge Orientalisme Paléographie
- Aires culturelles
- Byzantines (études) Europe centrale et orientale Europe sud-orientale Transméditerranée
Intervenant·e·s
- Filippo Ronconi [référent·e] directeur d'études, EHESS / Centre d'études en sciences sociales du religieux (CéSor)
The seminar will be structured in two main parts.
The first part, comprising two sessions, will address a series of foundational questions designed to introduce participants to Byzantine culture and society, with particular attention to the ways in which written culture — manuscripts, documents, and public and private inscriptions — enables us to reconstruct, interpret, and characterise the different historical phases of the Byzantine Empire and to engage with some of its defining themes. These include the imperial and patriarchal institutions, the role of written law and custom in the regulation of social life, the interplay between theology and politics, the place of monasticism within Byzantine society, the spread of literacy and its broader cultural significance, and Byzantium's cultural and political relations during the middle period with Western Europe, the Arab world, the steppe peoples, Northern Europe, and the Caucasus.
The second and larger part of the seminar will be devoted to a study of Photius of Constantinople — scholar, senior imperial official, and patriarch during the second half of the ninth century. Our approach will focus on the ways in which this pivotal figure of the so-called "first Byzantine humanism" gained access to the books that formed the basis of his cultural capital. We will enter, so to speak, into his workshop, examining how he conceived and produced his writings, and seeking out the individuals — secretaries, assistants, colleagues, and pupils — as well as the materials and practices of reading and writing on which he drew throughout his long career.
We will further analyse the deeper significance of Photius' major works, deliberately moving away from the idealising perspective that has too often cast him as a disinterested lover of learning driven by pure intellectual curiosity. We will show, instead, that the composition of each of his works responded to specific, contingent personal and political imperatives, unfolding across a remarkably eventful life. This approach will lead us, in particular, to a radical reappraisal of the traditional understanding of his two most celebrated texts, the Bibliotheca and the Mystagogy. Drawing on the analysis of their earliest manuscripts, we will demonstrate that, in the form in which they are conventionally imagined, neither ever truly existed as such in Photius' own conception.
The seminar will close with a broader reflection on the function and figure of the author in the Byzantine and medieval world — an attempt to emancipate this figure from the modern and contemporary notion of authorship, which too often serves as a distorting lens through which we approach those who composed texts in the Middle Ages.
One or two sessions will also be devoted to visits to libraries and museums in Paris.
Le programme détaillé n'est pas disponible.
-
Séminaires de recherche
– Arts, littératures et langages
– M1/S1-M2/S3
Suivi et validation – semestriel bi-mensuelle = 6 ECTS
MCC – exposé oral -
Séminaires de recherche
– Histoire - Histoire du monde/histoire des mondes
– M1/S1-M2/S3
Suivi et validation – semestriel bi-mensuelle = 6 ECTS
MCC – exposé oral -
Séminaires de recherche
– Histoire - Histoire et sciences sociales
– M1/S1-M2/S3
Suivi et validation – semestriel bi-mensuelle = 6 ECTS
MCC – exposé oral -
Séminaires de recherche
– Sciences des religions et société-Sciences sociales des religions
– M1/S1-M2/S3
Suivi et validation – semestriel bi-mensuelle = 6 ECTS
MCC – exposé oral -
Séminaires de recherche
– Sciences sociales de la santé et des sciences - Histoire des sciences, des techniques et des savoirs
– M1/S1-M2/S3
Suivi et validation – semestriel bi-mensuelle = 6 ECTS
MCC – exposé oral
- Contacts additionnels
- -
- Informations pratiques
filippo.ronconi@ehess.fr
- Direction de travaux des étudiants
By appointment (on the Campus each tuersday and thursday, or online on other days)
- Réception des candidats
By appointment (on the Campus each tuersday and thursday, or online on other days)
- Pré-requis
None (all Latin and Greek texts will be translated)
-
Campus Condorcet (Bât. RechercheNord)
Cours des humanités 93300 Aubervilliers
1er semestre / bimensuel (1re/3e/5e), jeudi 15:30-18:30
du 29 octobre 2026 au 4 février 2027
Nombre de séances : 8