Recent years have seen an ‘animal turn’ in Byzantine Studies with scholars deploying diverse approaches such as zooarchaeology, ecocriticism, and ecotheology to investigate how the Byzantines engaged with and thought about a variety of animal species. This animal turn is itself part of a wider environmental focus within the humanities to examine human perceptions of and interactions with the natural world.

One further means to explore conceptions of nature and animals within human societies is through examining hybrids and imaginary animals. Greco-Roman hybrids such as centaurs, satyrs, cynocephali, sirens, and tritons dwelled within the pages of Byzantine literature, illustrating notions of creative human-animal fusions, which were not disconnected from actual human relationships with animals. In a similar manner, Byzantine authors and artists were interested in many imaginative animals. As Boria Sax in his Imaginary Animals (2013) has theorized about this category, we should look beyond the conventional construing of human ‘experience’ and ‘imagination’ as opposing forces, and should instead understand these as intertwined. Each exerts vital influence upon how humans approach and consider the natural world and its inhabitants, especially as recent research in cognitive psychology affirms that perception itself consists largely of imagination. Accordingly, we find animals such as the phoenix, the echeneis, ant-lions, griffins, sea monsters, and dragons throughout a variety of Byzantine texts such as hagiographic and hexaemeral literature, while these are occasionally deployed within philosophical and theological discussions.

Moving beyond purely rationalizing assessments of these figures, this online conference seeks to bring together these imaginative conceptions to examine this understudied reflex of Byzantine animals. As Sax has remarked, instead of considering such figures as relics of a bygone era, ‘their creation is a constant part of the human condition,’ and an essential byproduct of human engagement with and theorization of the natural world. We welcome proposals that, rather than offering euhemerist speculations about what may ‘lie behind’ non-existent animals, strive to understand what these contemporary representations and concepts contributed to Byzantine culture and systems of knowledge.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

– Analysis of Byzantine folkloric and mythological conceptions of hybrids in both textual and artistic media
– Ecocritical examination of imaginary animals in Byzantine theorizing about nature and its possibilities
– Exploring Byzantine uses of hybrids in philosophical, religious, or political discourse
– Ecotheological approaches to Byzantine Christian interpretations of earlier ideas about Greco-Roman hybrids and imaginary animals

This online conference will take place on November 12-13 and is hosted by the Centre for Byzantine Studies at the University of Silesia in Katowice as part of the NCN-funded project ‘Beyond the Sacred: Conceptions of Nature in Byzantium (4th-15th centuries)’. Abstract submissions (up to 150 words) for a 20 minute presentation and a brief bio (c. 100 words) should be sent to bizancjum@us.edu.pl by September 30. Select papers will be invited to contribute to a planned edited volume on this theme.

Organizers: Ryan Denson, Przemysław Marciniak, and Max Ritter

Source : H-Soz-Kult