"Progress" and "innovation" are notoriously critical notions in the scholarship on Byzantium. For decades Byzantine culture has been depicted as stubbornly conservative and hostile to originality. Recently a much more nuanced picture has gradually emerged. Yet, it is still generally understood that the Byzantines pursued originality within and through tradition, without producing clear-cut, uncontroversial positive statements about cultural novelty and radical innovation. In my paper I will challenge this stance. Relying on fresh evidence from rhetorical texts, I will map out the models of cultural progress available in 12th-century Constantinople. Different attitudes to the future imply different patterns of appropriation of the past and are meant to meet different needs in the present. Thus, 12th-century discourses about cultural progress reflect wider political and historical changes affecting the capital over the century. Although there is no such thing as a consistent 12th-century epistemology of progress, glimpses of an ongoing debate, which would normally remain under the surface of public discourse, come to light when strained rhetorical occasions allow for their emergence. My paper wants to contribute to a very promising area of inquiry, one that can potentially change our perception of Byzantine cultural production.
The handout is available at the bottom of the page.
Aglae Pizzone is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Medieval Literature, University of Southern Denmark (Odense). Holding a PhD from the University of Milan, she has been awarded fellowships at Dumbarton Oaks (Washington, DC), Durham University and Princeton and she recently held a two-year position at the University of Geneva (Swiss National Center for Affective Sciences). Her areas of expertise include Late Antiquity and Middle Byzantine literature. She has recently edited the volume The Author in Middle Byzantine Literature. Modes, Functions, Identities (de Gruyter, 2014).
Related events:
Dirk Krausmüller 8 December, 2015 10:00 - 10:40
Alexander Riehle 8 December, 2015 11:00 - 11:40
