Inspired by Pera Museum’s exhibition “What Byzantinism Is This in Istanbul!”: Byzantium in Popular Culture, we invited artists to converse with researchers of Byzantine history on how they have engaged with Byzantine history in their works. We explore the unearthly ways of appropriating Byzantine culture in unlikely mediums and genres, showing novel ways of engagement with Byzantine heritage in popular culture.
Two Byzantinist colleagues reunite to discuss Arkady Martine’s 2020 Hugo winner space opera A Memory Called Empire, and its allusions to Byzantine culture.
Ingela Nilsson is the former director of the Swedish Institute in Istanbul. She is also a professor in Greek and Byzantine Studies at Uppsala University. Her research interests lie in the narrative traditions between the Ancient and Byzantine worlds, historiography, and fictional writings in Byzantium, as well as the reception of Byzantium in post-Byzantine Europe. Her most recent book is titled Writer and Occasion in Twelfth-Century Byzantium: The Authorial Voice of Constantine Manasses
Arkady Martine is the pen name of Dr. AnnaLinden Weller that she adopts in her speculative fiction writing. As AnnaLinden Weller, she is a historian of the Byzantine Empire and a city planner. She actually did her postdoctoral research at Uppsala University where she worked with Ingela Nilsson. Arkady Martine published short fiction in many prominent speculative fiction magazines. She won the Hugo Award for best novel in 2020 with her debut novel A Memory Called Empire. Her second novel, a sequel to her first, A Desolation Called Peace is published in 2021.
All content for What Byzantinism Is This in Istanbul! is the property of İstanbul Research Institute and is served directly from their servers
with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.
Inspired by Pera Museum’s exhibition “What Byzantinism Is This in Istanbul!”: Byzantium in Popular Culture, we invited artists to converse with researchers of Byzantine history on how they have engaged with Byzantine history in their works. We explore the unearthly ways of appropriating Byzantine culture in unlikely mediums and genres, showing novel ways of engagement with Byzantine heritage in popular culture.
Two Byzantinist colleagues reunite to discuss Arkady Martine’s 2020 Hugo winner space opera A Memory Called Empire, and its allusions to Byzantine culture.
Ingela Nilsson is the former director of the Swedish Institute in Istanbul. She is also a professor in Greek and Byzantine Studies at Uppsala University. Her research interests lie in the narrative traditions between the Ancient and Byzantine worlds, historiography, and fictional writings in Byzantium, as well as the reception of Byzantium in post-Byzantine Europe. Her most recent book is titled Writer and Occasion in Twelfth-Century Byzantium: The Authorial Voice of Constantine Manasses
Arkady Martine is the pen name of Dr. AnnaLinden Weller that she adopts in her speculative fiction writing. As AnnaLinden Weller, she is a historian of the Byzantine Empire and a city planner. She actually did her postdoctoral research at Uppsala University where she worked with Ingela Nilsson. Arkady Martine published short fiction in many prominent speculative fiction magazines. She won the Hugo Award for best novel in 2020 with her debut novel A Memory Called Empire. Her second novel, a sequel to her first, A Desolation Called Peace is published in 2021.
On Zack Snyder’s Justice League: Rohan Harris and Roland Betancourt converse on the Wonder Woman’s encounter with the Byzantine style murals.
What Byzantinism Is This in Istanbul!
54 minutes 40 seconds
3 years ago
On Zack Snyder’s Justice League: Rohan Harris and Roland Betancourt converse on the Wonder Woman’s encounter with the Byzantine style murals.
Rohan Harris and Roland Betancourt goes deep into the eerie mural scene in Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021), discussing it in the context of late Byzantine art.
Roland Betancourt is a professor of Byzantine Art in the Art History department, Visual Studies program director, and affiliate faculty at the Religious Studies of UC Irvine. His latest book Performing the Gospels in Byzantium: Sight, Sound, and Space in the Divine Liturgy has just come out from Cambridge University Press, only a year after his Byzantine Intersectionality from Princeton University Press. Roland contributed to the exhibition catalog of “What Byzantinism Is This in Istanbul!”: Byzantium in Popular Culture with a piece titled “Neon Byzantium: Aesthetics without Iconography in Las Vegas”.
Rohan Harris is a scenic artist. He worked for the sets of giant and prized movies and TV shows such as Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, King Arthur, and Macbeth. He turned these productions that we all admire into believable medieval settings. His more recent work is Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021). The 2017 movie was re-released with Zack Snyder’s cut in 2021. This latter version brought us an almost three-minute-long scene where we can spectate an otherworldly room decorated in frescoes with the scenes of Darkseid’s first attack on Earth.
What Byzantinism Is This in Istanbul!
Inspired by Pera Museum’s exhibition “What Byzantinism Is This in Istanbul!”: Byzantium in Popular Culture, we invited artists to converse with researchers of Byzantine history on how they have engaged with Byzantine history in their works. We explore the unearthly ways of appropriating Byzantine culture in unlikely mediums and genres, showing novel ways of engagement with Byzantine heritage in popular culture.
Two Byzantinist colleagues reunite to discuss Arkady Martine’s 2020 Hugo winner space opera A Memory Called Empire, and its allusions to Byzantine culture.
Ingela Nilsson is the former director of the Swedish Institute in Istanbul. She is also a professor in Greek and Byzantine Studies at Uppsala University. Her research interests lie in the narrative traditions between the Ancient and Byzantine worlds, historiography, and fictional writings in Byzantium, as well as the reception of Byzantium in post-Byzantine Europe. Her most recent book is titled Writer and Occasion in Twelfth-Century Byzantium: The Authorial Voice of Constantine Manasses
Arkady Martine is the pen name of Dr. AnnaLinden Weller that she adopts in her speculative fiction writing. As AnnaLinden Weller, she is a historian of the Byzantine Empire and a city planner. She actually did her postdoctoral research at Uppsala University where she worked with Ingela Nilsson. Arkady Martine published short fiction in many prominent speculative fiction magazines. She won the Hugo Award for best novel in 2020 with her debut novel A Memory Called Empire. Her second novel, a sequel to her first, A Desolation Called Peace is published in 2021.
