Cultures of Empire: Byzantium, 711-1453

FAIN: FW-50183-10

William Linden North
Carleton College (Northfield, MN 55057-4001)

I seek a "Teaching Development Fellowship" in order to revise Cultures of Empire: Byzantium, 711-1453, an intermediate-level history course I teach at Carleton College. Through close study of written and visual evidence, students in the course examine several aspects of this complex culture and polity: the nature and function of imperial rule, Byzantine aesthetics, Byzantium's ethnic and religious diversity, its relations with the Latin West and the Muslim world. In my project, I will read recent scholarship on the Byzantine world, conduct archival research at the Dumbarton Oaks research center (Washington, DC), translate critical primary sources in Greek and Latin, and make a study trip to key sites in the eastern Mediterranean. This work will allow me to add new content in two crucial areas of my course: 1) the artistic and architectural dimensions of Byzantine culture; and 2) the complex, changing, and sometimes tragic encounters between Byzantium and its Latin and Muslim neighbors.