Τhe Programme "Studies in Hellenic Culture" of the Open University of Cyprus (OUC) is opening the 5th Cycle of the Lecture Series in Late Antiquity with general title: “When our world became Christian”. The Lecture Series examines various aspects of the period known as Late Antiquity but tends to focus on issues of Christianization, Late Antique Archaeology, and the Eastern Roman Empire. The first lecture will be held on Thursday, 22 February 2024 by renowned Emeritus Professor Garth Fowden, who will discuss “Cross-border communities in late Antiquity and after: Iran, East Rome, the Caliphate” (In Greek). Dr Fowden is visiting OUC in the context of the Erasmus+ Programme with a teaching scholarship.
His lecture will be held at the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation's main event hall, and will be broadcasted live through OUC’s eLearning Platform (eClass) at the web link: https://shorturl.at/kBIOW. Convenor of the Series is Associate Professor Georgios Deligiannakis, Programme "Studies in Hellenic Culture". The Series is supported by the Student and Alumni Union of the Programme and the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation.
Link for Registrations: https://forms.office.com/e/RTfi7Fd8Kn
Zoroastrians of Iran or Asia Minor; Jews of Babylonia or Palestine; Syriac-speaking Christians either east or west of the frontier and of various theological persuasions; Manichean missionaries in the border zone and as far-flung as India or North Africa; also Arab or East Roman border guards. Although comparative study of imperial structures and frontiers is currently fashionable, cross-border – usually religious – communities operating on both sides of political divides have been neglected. This lecture concentrates on the period from the third to tenth centuries CE, and regions between on the one hand the East Roman (‘Byzantine’) Empire, and on the other hand Sasanid Iran and later the Caliphate: to what extent did these groups adapt themselves to their various social and political environments, or share spiritual orientations and ways of life? After surveying these far-distant horizons, we shall touch on and discuss the Cypriot experience too.
After study at Oxford and post-doctoral work at Cambridge, Dr Garth Fowden was employed at the National Research Foundation in Athens from 1985 to 2013. He has taught at the Universities of Groningen, Princeton, Ann Arbor and Cambridge (Sultan Qaboos Professor of Abrahamic Faiths 2013-20). He is a Professor Emeritus of the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of the British Academy. His publications examine imperial structures and conceptual tendencies during the First Millennium CE, focusing latterly on the origins and early development of Islam.
