Maria Mavroudi

Professor

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Research Interests

Byzantium and the Arabs; bilinguals in the Middle Ages; Byzantine and Islamic science; the ancient tradition between Byzantium and Islam; Byzantine intellectual history; survival and transformation of Byzantine culture after 1453.

Education

PhD in Byzantine Studies, Harvard University, Committee on Byzantine Studies, 1998

MA in Byzantine Literature, Harvard University, Department of the Classics, 1992

BA in Philology, University of Thessaloniki, Greece, 1990

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Teaching Appointments

Professor, UC Berkeley (July 2008—)

Professor, Princeton University (July 2006-June 2008)

Associate Professor, UC Berkeley (July 2005-June 2008)

Assistant Professor, UC Berkeley (July 2002-June 2005)

Visiting Lecturer, UC Berkeley, Classics Department (Fall 1998)

Teaching Assistant, Harvard University, Department of the Classics (Spring 1993)

Instructor in Modern Greek, Harvard University Extension School (1991-1992)

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Awards & Fellowships

Wolfgang Fritz Volbach Fellowship, University of Mainz (May-June 2022).

Graduate Assembly Faculty Mentorship Award (2021) (recognizes "an outstanding commitment to mentoring, advising, and supporting graduate students").

Fellowship, Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, Jerusalem. Research group: Cultural Brokerage in Pre-Modern Islam (January-June 2021).

Fellowship, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2016-17).

MacArthur Fellowship (2004-2009)

Humboldt-Forschungsstipendium, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2007, deferred)

Regents' Junior Faculty Fellowship (2004)

Hellman Family Faculty Fund (2004)

Townsend Center for the Humanities Fellowship (2004-2005)

Hanna Seeger Davis Post-doctoral Teaching Fellowship in Hellenic Studies, Princeton University (2001-2002)

Dumbarton Oaks Fellowship (2000-2001)

Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities for Dissertation Completion (1995-1996)

Dumbarton Oaks Junior Fellowship (1994-1995)

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Books

Bilingualism in Greek and Arabic: Evidence from the Manuscripts (in preparation).

The Ocult Sciences in Byzantium, ed. with Paul Magdalino (Geneva: éditions de la Pomme d'Or, 2007).

A Byzantine Book on Dream Interpretation: The Oneirocriticon of Achmet and Its Arabic Sources. E.J. Brill: Leiden, 2002.

Artemidorou Oneirocritica. Translation of a 2nd century A.D. manual on dream interpretation from Classical into Modern Greek and Introduction. Histos: Athens, 2002.

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Articles

“Historiographical debates and modern political considerations in writing a cultural history of the Holy Land: a Byzantinist’s perspective,” in Religious and Intellectual Diversity in the Islamicate World and Beyond. Essays in honor of Sarah Stroumsa, eds. Sabine Schmidtke and Omer Michaelis (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2023), 731-773. 

"Die Erforschung der kollektive Identität in Byzanz im Vergleich zu Westeuropa und der islamischen Welt: Parallelen und Unterschiede in der Konstruktion von „Ost“ und „West“," Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta 60 (2023), 245–279. Open Access https://zrvi-visanu.rs/onlinearchive/zrvi/ZRVI_60-1.pdf

“Byzantine translations from Arabic into Greek: old and new historiographical trends in confluence and in conflict” Journal of Late Antique, Islamic, and Byzantine Studies 2: 1–2 (2023), 215–288. Open Access https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/jlaibs.2023.0021

“Arabic Terms in Byzantine Materia Medica: Oral and Textual Transmission”, in Petros Bouras-Vallianatos and Dionysios Stathakopoulos, eds. Drugs in the Medieval Mediterranean: Pharmacological Exchange across Cultures, Genres, and Languages, 11^th-14^th century (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2023), 130–183.

“Subaltern Byzantinism”, in Benjamin Anderson and Mirela Ivanova, eds. Is Byzantine Studies a colonialist discipline? Towards a critical historiography(Penn State University Press, University Park, 2023), 98–107.

"Η επανάσταση του 1821 από την οπτική γωνία της βυζαντινολογίας" inἜκφρασις. Αφιέρωμα στον καθηγητή Βασίλη Κατσαρό, επιμέλεια Δημήτρης Π. Δρακούλης και Πασχάλης Ανδρούδης (Θεσσαλονίκη: Εκδοτικός Οίκος Κ. & Μ. Σταμούλη, 2022), 49-80 [“An Analysis of the Greek Revolution against the Ottoman Empire in 1821 from the Perspective of Byzantine Studies”, in Εkphrasis. A Festschrift for Professor Vasilis Katsaros, ed. Dimitris P. Drakoulis and Paschalis Androudis (Thessaloniki: K. and M. Stamoulis, 2022), 49–80.

"The Modern Study of Selfhood in Byzantium compared with Medieval Europe and the Islamic World: Parallel and Diverging Trends in the Construction of 'East' and 'West' "Palaeoslavica 30: 1-2 (2022) [Volume honoring the memory of Alexander Strakhov, Hans Rothe and Ihor Ševčenko], 234-304. 

"Bizans Dönemi Arapça-Yunanca Tercümeleri Içinde Astroloji Metinlerinin Yeri" ["Astrological Texts among the Byzantine Translations from Arabic into Greek", transl. into Turkish by Tunç Şen], Toplumsal tarih 332 (Aǧustos 2021) [ Bizans, İslam ve Osmanlı dünyasında astroloji ve müneccimler, ed.  Tunç Şen], 26–33.

"Προσεγγίσεις στις ελληνοαραβικές σπουδές κατά τον εικοστό αιώνα: πολιτισμικές και πολιτικές τοποθετήσεις" Byzantina 37 (2019/20), 271-316.

 “Faith and Community: Their Deployment in the Modern Study of Byzantino-Arabica.” In Petre Guran and David A. Michelson, eds. Faith and Community around the Mediterranean: In Honor of Peter R. L. Brown. Études Byzantines et Post Byzantines, new series, vol. I (VIII). Bucharest, Académie roumaine; Heidelberg: Herlo Verlag UG, 2019 [2020], 239-250. 

“The Modern Historiography of Byzantine and Islamic Philosophy: a Comparison” Al-Masāq 32:3 (2020)

“Les actes arabes de Vatopédi”. Actes de Vatopédi III. Archives de l’Athos. Ed. J. Lefort, K. Smyrlis, E. Kolovos et al. L’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres et l’Académie d’Athènes (Peeters, 2019), pp. 438-440.

 “Homer in Greece from the End of Antiquity 1:  The Byzantine Reception of Homer and His Export to Other Cultures" The Cambridge Guide to Homer, ed. Corinne Pache and Robert Lamberton (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 444–472.

“Homer in Greece from the End of Antiquity 2:  Homer after Byzantium, from the Early Ottoman Period to the Age of Nationalisms” The Cambridge Guide to Homer, ed. Corinne Pache and Robert Lamberton (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 473–489.

 “Comparing Byzantine and Arabic Poetry: Introductory Remarks” Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta 55 (2018), 257–270. https://zrvi-visanu.rs/onlinearchive/zrvi/ZRVI_55.pdf 

“Joice NanKivell Loch: An Australian Contribution to Byzantium’s Modern Greek Reception” Modern Greek Studies, Australia and New Zealand 19 (2018), 227–247.

“An Italian Aid for Learning Ottoman: Etaireia Makedonikon Spoudon, MS I-15 4” in E. Litsas, S. Mpougioukli, M. Mavroudi, “Katalogos Cheirographon Etaireias Makedonikon Spoudon” Makedonika 42 (2017), 423–456.

"Aspects of the human body within Islamic cultures" in Vasso Penna, ed. Heads and Tails − Tales and Bodies: Engraving the Human Figure from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period. Catalogue of the exhibition organized by the Pushkin Museum, the Benaki Museum & KIKPE Numismatic Collection.July 5 − October 30, 2016, Gallery 24, Pushkin Museum, Moscow (MER Paper Kunsthalle, 2017), 351–363.

"Scholars and Intellectuals in the Work of Ihor Ševčenko" Palaeoslavica 24:1 (2016), 245–280.

"Translations from Greek into Arabic and Latin during the Middle Ages: Searching for the Classical Tradition" Speculum 90:1 (January 2015), 28–59.

"Ελληνική φιλοσοφία στην αυλή του Μωάμεθ Β´," ["Greek Philosophy at the Court of Mehmet II"], Byzantina 33 (2014), 151–182. 

"Greek Language and Education Under Early Islam," in Islamic Cultures, Islamic Contexts: Essays in Honor of Professor Patricia Crone, eds. Behnam Sadeghi, Asad Q. Ahmed, Robert Hoyland, Adam Silverstein (Leiden: E. J. Brill 2014), 295–342.

"Licit and Illicit Divination: Empress Zoe and the Icon of Christ Antiphonetes", in Jean-Michel Spieser and Veronique Dasen, eds., Les saviors magiques et leur transmission de l'Antiquité à la Renaissance. Micrologus Library 60, SISMEL, (Edizioni del Galluzzo, Florence 2014), 431–460.

"Byzantine and Islamic Dream Interpretation: A Comparative Approach to the Problem of "Reality" vs. "Literary Tradition" in C. Angelidi and G. Calofonos, eds. Dreaming of Byzantium and Beyond (Ashgate, 2014), 161–186.

"Translators from Greek into Arabic at the Court of Mehmet the Conqueror" in A. Ödekan, N. Necipoǧlu, E. Akyürek, eds., The Byzantine Court: Source of Power and Culture. Papers from the Second International Sevgi Gönül Byzantine Studies Symposium, Istanbul, Turkey, June 2010 (Istanbul: Koç University Press, 2013), 195–207.

"Plethon as a Subversive and His Reception in the Islamic World" in D. Angelov and M. Saxby, eds., Power and Subversion in Byzantium. Papers from the 43rd Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Birmingham, March 2010. Publications of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies 17 (Ashgate Variorum, 2013), 177–204.

"The Naples Dioscorides"; "Two Ostraka" in Helen Evans with Brandie Ratliff, eds. Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition (7th-9th Centuries). Catalogue of the Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Yale University Press, 2012), 22–26.

"Learned Women of Byzantium and the Surviving Record" in E. Fisher, S. Papaioannou, D. Sullivan, eds. Byzantine Religious Culture: Studies in Honor of Alice-Mary Talbot. The Medieval Mediterranean 92 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2012), 53–84.

"Islamic Divination in the Context of Its "Eastern" and "Western" Counterparts", in M. Farhad with S. Bağcı, eds. Falnama: The Book of Omens, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, October 24, 2009–January 24, 2010 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2009), 222–29 + 324–329. [Volume selected as one of the best publications of 2010 by The Art News Paper].

"Ta'bīr al-ruyʼā and aḥkām al-nujūm: References to Women in Dream Interpretation and Astrology Transferred from Graeco-Roman Antiquity and Medieval Islam to Byzantium: Some Problems and Considerations", in B. Gruendler and M. Cooperson, eds., Classical Arabic Humanities in Their Own Terms. Festschrift for Wolfhart Heinrichs on His 65th Birthday from His Students and Colleagues (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2008), 47–67.

"Arabic Words in Greek Lettrers: The Violet Fragment and More" in Jacques Grand'Henry and Jerôme Lentin, eds. Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Middle Arabic and Mixed Arabic throughout History, Louvain-la-Neuve 11-14 May 2004. Publications de l'Institut Orientaliste de Louvain, Peeters 2008, 321–354.

(with Simon Franklin), "Byzantino-Slavica and Byzantino-Arabica: possibilities and problems of comparison" Byzantinoslavica 65 (2007), 51–67.

(with Paul Magdalino), Introduction to co-edited volume, The Occult Sciences in Byzantium (Geneva: éditions de la Pomme d'Or, 2007), 11–37.

"Occult Science and Society in Byzantium: Considerations for Future Research" in P. Magdalino and M. Mavroudi, eds. The Occult Sciences in Byzantium (Geneva: éditions de la Pomme d'Or, 2007), pp. 39–95.

"Late Byzantium and Exchange with Arabic Writers", in S. T. Brooks, ed., Byzantium, Faith and Power (1261–1557). Perspectives on Late Byzantine Art and Culture. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Symposia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 62–75.

(with Mary-Lyon Dolezal). "Theodore Hyrtakenos' Description of the Garden of St. Anna and the Byzantine Descriptions of Gardens." A. Littlewood, H. Maguire, J. Wolschke-Buhlmann, eds. Byzantine Garden Culture (Dumbarton Oaks: Washington, D.C., 2002), 105–158.

Το λεγόμενο Ονειροκριτικόν του Αχμέτ, ένα βυζαντινό βιβλίο ονειροκριτικής και οι αραβικές πηγές του. Αρχαιολογία 79 (Ιούνιος 2001).

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Encyclopedia Entries

"Byzantine Science"; "Astrology, Byzantine"; "Eschatology, Byzantine" for The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, ed. R. Bagnall, K. Brodersen, C. Champion, A. Erskine and S. Huebner (Wiley–Blackwell, 2013).

"Dream Interpretation" for The Classical Tradition, ed. Anthony Grafton, Glenn Most, Salvatore Settis (Harvard University Press, 2010), 285–86.

"Artemidorus of Ephesus" for Encyclopedia of Islam, 3rd edition. Edited by: Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas and Everett Rowson. Brill, 2010. Brill Online.

"Achmet", Kindlers Literatur Lexikon, 3, völlig neu bearbeitete Auflage, hg. von Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Stuttgart, Weimar 2009.

"Women, Gender and Representation of Sexualities and Gender — Dream Literature" for the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures (E.J. Brill). [General Editor Suad Joseph . Brill, 2010. Brill Online. Print Version: Volume 5, page 406, column 1]

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Book Reviews

Hélène Condylis, A Chronicle of the Mediterranean [in Greek: Χρονικό της Μεσογείου](Εκδόσεις Πεδίο, Αθήνα, 2021). Διάστιχο, 12 Απριλίου 2021, https://diastixo.gr/kritikes/meletesdokimia/16103-xroniko-mesogeiou 

Euthymios Nicolaidis, Science and Eastern Orthodoxy: From the Greek Fathers to the Age of Globalization, translated by Susan Emanuel. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2011. Catholic Historical Review 99:1 (2013), 96–99.

Irfan Shahid, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century. Volume 2, Part 2: Economic, Social and Cultural History. (Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C. 2009). Byzantinische Zeitschrift 104:1 (2011), 220–25.

Nadia-Maria El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004). Byzantinische Zeitschrift 100:1 (2008), 200-204.

Garth Fowden, Quṣayr 'Amra. Art and the Umayyad Elite in Late Antique Syria (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004). Journal of Roman Archeology 19 (2006), pp. 731-39.

Arietta Papaconstantinou, Le culte des saints en Égypte des Byzantins aux Abbassides. L'apport des inscriptions et des papyrus grecs et coptes. Préface de Jean Gascou. Collection Le monde byzantin dirigée par Bernard Flusin (Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2001). International Journal of Middle East Studies 36:2 (2004), pp. 289-91.

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Translations

(with Foteini Spingou), “Epigrams on Rings from the Twelfth and Fourteenth Centuries” and “Manuel Philes: On a Lion Depicted on the Ground”. Translation and commentary on these poems in Foteini Spingou, ed. Sources for Byzantine Art History: Volume 3. The Visual Culture of Later Byzantium (c. 1081–c. 1350) (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 291–302 and 1093–96.

Poems selected and translated for the Byzantine section of The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present, eds. Peter Constantine, Rachel Hadas, Edmund Keeley, Karen Van Dyck; intro. Robert Hass (W. W. Norton and Company, 2009), 327 and 347 (Niketas Eugeneianos, Iambic Verses to a Beloved Woman; Manuel Philes, On the Well-Run Bathhouse).

(with Fr. Justin of Sinai and D. Armstrong), The life and contest of the Holy Great Martyr, Virgin, and all-wise Catherine. Saint Catherine Monastery, the God-trodden Mount of Sinai (London; Saint Catherine Foundation, 2004). 51 pp.

Byzantine Thessaloniki 

“Πρόλογος”, Κώστας Καρράς, Θεσσαλονίκη, η χαμένη ευκαιρία. Όραμα μιας διαχρονικής πόλης. Προλογίζουν: Γιάννης Καρράς, Μαρία Μαυρουδή, Άγγελος Χανιώτης (Αθήνα: Εκδόσεις Πρώτη Ύλη, 2023), 15-19 (“Introduction”  to Costas Carras, Thessaloniki, the wasted opportunity. Vision of an intertemporal city. With introductions by Ioannis Carras, Maria Mavroudi, Angelos Chaniotis (Athens: Proti Yli, 2023), 15–19.

"Τα ευρήματα του μετρό Θεσσαλονίκης και η κρίση του εθνικού κράτους" ["The Byzantine Findings of the Thessaloniki Metro and the Crisis of the Nation State"], Καθημερινή 31 Ιουλίου 2021.

METRO STATION VS. MONUMENTS? A CONTROVERSIAL PROJECT IN GREECE