Description:

Sergey Ivanov (British Academy Fellow; Northwestern University Visiting Scholar) will be presenting a Global Antiquities Workshop in the Classics Seminar Room (Kresge 4-364) on Friday, January 6, from 12:30–2 p.m. Prior to the workshop, at 12 noon, light refreshments will be served.

The description of the contents of the workship is as follows:

It is broadly believed that the Russian civilization is the inheritor of Byzantium. Those who detest both Byzantium and Russia explain the latter’s defects as the former’s birthmarks. Those who want to extol Russia often attribute its greatness to its Byzantine “genes.” In recent decades, the discourse on Byzantium and the alleged  role it has played in “Russian spirituality,” or, to the contrary, “Russian doom,” have frequently come up in Russian public debates. It is time to rethink the very foundations of Russian culture (Rus’), and to do it in a serious, scholarly manner, free of  ideological bias and sensationalism.