The workshop will explore the question of why Byzantium was and keeps being marginalized within the western academic canon and to a lesser extent in the public discourse. Instead of resurrecting the 19th- and early-20th-century academic debate known as the “Byzantine question” (“Byzantinische Frage”), this workshop examines the historiographical mechanisms and turning points that resulted in the marginalization of Byzantium in art history and related fields.
In an attempt to move past pinpointing single moments of “influence” from Byzantium to the West, the workshop asks why the one hundred-year search to answer the “Byzantine question” was unsuccessful, failing to secure a prominent place for the Eastern Roman Empire within art historical teaching and scholarship. Building on these insights, the workshop will delve into practical aspects, seeking possible places for Byzantium after the end of a linear, chronological art historical canon as described by Hans Belting (Das Ende der Kunstgeschichte: Eine Revision nach 10 Jahren) and others. The talks will focus on historiography and scholarly networks, on questions of collecting, artistic production, national and supranational political thought, and on Byzantium’s place within the boundaries of modern academic disciplines.
