By Sarah Böhlau
From the moment the time travel narrative entered human imagination at the end of the 19th century, opening doors to both past and future, the medieval period has held a special point of interest for many storytellers. Examining the foreign period through the lens of temporal tourism provides a unique way to relate to the past – and rituals are important support structures in this journey.9-14 May, 2022
The international Network for Medieval Arts and Rituals (NetMAR) is seeking to organise a session at the 57th International Congress of Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, 9-14 May, 2022. We have the great honour to have with us as our keynote speaker Associate Professor Stavroula Constantinou, Director of the Centre for Medieval Arts & Rituals (University of Cyprus) who will be speaking on Arts and Rituals of Death in Byzantine Literature.By Nils Holger Petersen
In principle, aesthetic evaluation is not essential for judging the successfulness of rituals. The aesthetic value of song, however, was instrumental for the function of medieval liturgical rituals. Elements of these, gradually received into the modern arts, question the distinction between the medieval and medievalism.12 July 2021
NetMAR’s Project Coordinator, Dr Stavroula Constantinou, will be speaking at the Narrating Relationships in Holy Lives from the First Millennium AD conference, organised by the Department of Classics & Ancient History of the University of Exeter. Dr Constantinou’s paper is entitled “Narrating Friendship in Byzantine Hagiography” and features an engaging reading of friendship in the fifth-century anonymous text Life of Eupraxia.By Christos Hadjiyiannis
In her latest work, Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović stars as Maria Callas. The work opened at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich on 3 September 2020. In his review of the opera, Dr Christos Hadjiyiannis, Scientific Project Manager of NetMAR, suggests that the opera borrows much from late antique and early medieval texts that thematise the suffering of Christian women.
