Profound cultural change defined the Byzantine world. For centuries after its embrace of Christianity, exchanges of ideas, objects, peoples and identities continued to flow across an empire that found itself located at the crossroads of so many other worlds. This book brings together a selection of important contributions to the study of cross-cultural exchange in the Byzantine world in its largest geographic and temporal sense. It employs an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, presenting papers first given by graduate and early career academic researchers from around the world at the XVII International Graduate Conference of the Oxford University Byzantine Society, held on 27 and 28 February 2015.

Le monde byzantin se caractérise par de profondes mutations culturelles. Durant les siècles suivant l'adoption du christianisme, la diffusion des idées, la circulation des objets, les mouvements des peuples et le dialogue entre les identités n'ont pas cessé de métamorphoser cet empire lui-même situé au carrefour d'un grand nombre d'autres civilisations. Cet ouvrage rassemble plusieurs contributions soigneusement choisies et constitue un apport majeur à l'étude des échanges culturels dans le monde byzantin dans un cadre géographique et temporel large. Son approche interdisciplinaire et comparative présente des interventions inédites d'étudiants et de jeunes chercheurs venus du monde entier pour participer à la dix-septième conférence internationale de l'Oxford University Byzantine Society qui s'est tenue les 27 et 28 février 2015.

Kirsty Stewart recently obtained her DPhil from the University of Oxford under the supervision of Professor Marc Lauxtermann. Her current research focuses on ecocriticism and theological naturalism.

James Moreton Wakeley read Classics at Cambridge before moving to study Later Roman History at Lincoln College, Oxford. He is now working on a DPhil in Early Islamic History and Historiography.

CONTENTS: Part I: Political Exchange - James Moreton Wakeley: Exchanging Identities on the Eastern Frontier: The Early Arab Conquests from the Byzantine Sources - Maximilian C. G. Lau: Multilateral Co-Operation in the Black Sea in the Late Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries: The Case for an Alliance between Byzantium, Kiev and Georgia - Zuzana Cernáková: Remembering a Cross-Cultural Encounter: The Representations of the Byzantine General Tatikios in Twelfth-Century France - Part II: Theological Interactions - Elizabeth Buchanan: From Hermit Saint to Patron of Weavers and Medieval Wild Man: The Reception of Saint Onuphrius in the West - Joseph Grabau: Gregory Nazianzen's use of Negative Theology in Oration 38 («On the Nativity») - Sihong Lin: «Never had there been such happy times»: Byzantine Rome and the Making of the Anglo-Saxon Church, c.640-680 85 - Karen Hamada: «Unity» in Christ: Christological Basis for Church Unity in the Theology of Nerses snorhali - Jeffrey Brubaker: Nuncii or Legati: What makes a Papal Representative in 1234? - Part III: Cultural Correspondence - Katie Sykes: Holy Bodies, Holy Relics: The Evolution of Late Antique Hagiographical Topoi in the Patericon of the Kievan Caves Monastery - Valeria Flavia Lovato: Hellenising Cato? A Short Survey of the Concepts of Greekness, Romanity and Barbarity in John Tzetzes' Work and Thought - Tristan Schmidt: Protective and Fierce: The Emperor as a Lion in Contact with Foreigners and his Subjects in Twelfth- and Early Thirteenth-Century Byzantine Court Literature - Pietro Pirrone: La «staurothèque de Gaète»: Un témoignage de la communauté «grecque» dans la principauté lombarde de Salerne?