David Barritt
has recently completed a doctoral thesis at Oxford University focusing on relations between the churches of Rome and Constantinople from the 9th to 11th centuries. More broadly, he is interested in the ecclesiastical, social and cultural history of late antique and medieval central and eastern Europe, and in the application of sociological and anthropological theories to historical themes.
Laura Borghetti
is currently a PhD candidate within the DFG-funded Training Research Group 1876 “Early Concepts of Humans and Nature” at Mainz University, with a project focused on the literary depictions of meteorological phenomena in Byzantine texts from the 9th to 12th centuries. She holds an MA (2015) and a BA (2012) from the University of Roma Tre. Her main research interests focus on questions of environmental history, narratology, metaphor theories, cognitive semantics and gender within Middle-Byzantine literature.
Nikolas Churik
holds an MA in Early Christian Studies from the University of Notre Dame and will be pursuing a PhD in Classics from Princeton University. He is interested in rhetoric, literary commentaries and criticism, and linguistic theory.
Elif Demirtiken
is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh. She holds two MA degrees, one in Archaeology and History of Art from Koç University (2010–12), and another in Comparative History from CEU (2012–14). She is currently a junior fellow at ANAMED in Istanbul and also participates in the research project “Crossing Frontiers: Christians and Muslims and their Art in Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus”, a part of the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories Initiative.
Alasdair C. Grant
has studied variously Medieval History, Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Turkish at the Universities of St Andrews (MA Hons., 2011–15), Oxford (MSt, 2015–16), Edinburgh (PhD, 2016-present), and Mainz (visiting researcher, 2017–18). His doctoral thesis is a study of captives as cross-cultural brokers in the later Byzantine period (c.1280–1450). He has also worked and published on holy war in Pisa (The English Historical Review 131, 2016), and knowledge of the Mongols in Latin Europe (Traditio 73, 2018).
will complete his PhD in Archaeology at Durham University in 2019. He holds MA degrees in Theology (2014) and Archaeology (2014) from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a BA in History from the University of North Texas (2004). His research interests revolve around the ecclesiastical economy and the impact of charities in the Byzantine Near East, and the intersection between archaeology and mental health.
Mirela Ivanova
is an AHRC-Lady Dervorguilla scholar at Balliol College, Oxford working toward a doctoral thesis on cultures of writing in 9th- to 10th-century Slavonic-speaking lands with Dr Jonathan Shepard and Dr Catherine Holmes. She is interested in how people thought about writing and what frameworks rationalised or justified textuality in the medieval Slavic and Byzantine worlds.
Hugh Jeffery
is currently a predoctoral fellow at ANAMED, Istanbul, completing a doctorate to be awarded by the University of Oxford. He holds an MSt and BA from the University of Oxford. He is an archaeologist specialising in late antique and Byzantine material cultures, and is preparing a study of the Middle Byzantine settlement at Aphrodisias.
Matthew Kinloch
holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford (2014–18), an MRes from the University of Birmingham (2013–14), and a BA from the University of Durham (2010–13). He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna. He principally works on late Byzantine historiography and is particularly interested in questions of narratology, postmodernism, agency, gender, and reception.
Valeria Flavia Lovato
obtained her PhD in Greek Literature and Philology at the Universities of Turin and Lausanne (March 2017). Currently, she is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Medieval Literature (University of Southern Denmark), with a project on Isaac Comnenus Porphyrogenitus. She also works on the reception of Homer, focusing especially on the educational and social function of classicizing learning in 12th-century Byzantium.
Francesco Lovino
obtained his PhD at the Università degli studi di Padova (2015). He is currently an associate member of the Centre for Early Medieval Studies in Brno and
Alex MacFarlane
is a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford, working on a thesis titled “Alexander Re-Mapped: Geography and Identity in the Alexander Romance in Armenia”. This follows a MSt in Classical Armenian Studies (University of Oxford) and a MA in Ancient History (King’s College London). Alex’s research focuses on the reception of legendary narratives of Alexander iii of Macedon at the “edges” of the world mapped therein and their recasting in medieval Caucasian literary milieu. For two years, Alex is also a curator/cataloguer at the British Library, working with the Armenian collection.
Kosuke Nakada
holds an MLitt (2010–12) and a BA (2006–10) from the University of Tokyo. He has also been a research fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (2012–15). After continuing his doctoral study at the University of Tokyo, he moved to the University of St Andrews, where he is currently working on his PhD dissertation. His research examines the social and cultural interactions between Byzantium and the Caucasian peoples from the 9th to 11th centuries.
Jonas Nilsson
holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford (2012–18), an MSt from the University of Oxford (2008–09) and an MA from the University of Lund (2002–08). He has worked mainly on the political history of the Middle Byzantine period and is particularly interested in questions of public administration, networks, ideology and the intersection of formal and informal power.
Theresia Raum
studied Latin, History, and Social and Political Studies at the University of Würzburg. She is currently a doctoral candidate and research associate at the University of Tübingen. She is particularly interested in social mechanisms in Late Antiquity and works on the early 7th century.
Maria Rukavichnikova
is currently a graduate student at Kellogg College, University of Oxford reading for an MSt in Late Antique and Byzantine studies. Her research, supervised by Professor Marc Lauxtermann, focuses on literary analysis of late Byzantine historiography. In particular, she examines the image of the emperor as presented
Milan Vukašinović
holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in History from the University of Belgrade. He is presently enrolled in a joint PhD program of Byzantine history at the EHESS in Paris and the University of Belgrade, principally focused on the first half of the 13th century. His research interests include narrativization of present and past social experience in medieval and modern texts, different conceptions of ideology, and gender issues.