Who’s Afraid of the East Romans?

Recent years have seen a push to recognize the east Roman state and its people for what and who they said they were — Romans — and not to hide that reality under the invented term “Byzantium,” which has always encoded negative stereotypes. In this talk, professor Kaldellis will discuss the ideologies and structural interests that have resisted acknowledging a Roman people in the east, ranging from western Eurocentrism to modern Greek nationalism. “Rome" has long been a foundational matrix for thinking about western identities and states: what would it look like if it made room to accommodate its eastern branch on an equal basis?

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Anthony Kaldellis is a professor of Classics at the University of Chicago. He has published widely on the history, culture, and literature of Byzantium, ranging from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. His works include a new, comprehensive history of the eastern Roman empire: The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium (Oxford, 2023). Most recently he has published a new history of the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and a study of western perceptions of Byzantium from late antiquity to World War II (Phantom Byzantium). He has translated medieval Greek authors, including historians such as Prokopios, Attaleiates, and Laonikos Chalkokondyles, and is the host of the academic podcast “Byzantium & Friends,” going strong since 2019.