Hagia Sophia is back in the news. To understand what is happening, we need to know the complex history of this building as a church, mosque, and museum, and the many parties that have sought to claim it. In this episode, Bob Ousterhout (University of Pennsylvania) illuminates this rich history, with a focus on the last century and a half, the current political forces, and the priority to preserve the history of the monument for all who wish to study and experience it. He is the author of the magisterial survey Eastern Medieval Architecture: The Building Traditions of Byzantium and Neighboring Lands (Oxford 2019), and an article on the topic at hand: 'From Hagia Sophia to Ayasofya: Architecture and the Persistence of Memory,' İstanbul Araştırmaları Yıllığı 2 (2013) 1-8, which is available here. [Sidenote: you may want to check out my recent podcast interviews on The Medieval Podcast and the Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Podcast.]
97. The remarkable world of hospitals, orphanages, and leprosaria, with Tim Miller
96. Pre-Islamic Arabia, with Valentina Grasso
95. Rome and Byzantium in Heavy Metal music, with Jeremy Swist
94. What academic tenure does for you (yes, you!), with Jacques Berlinerblau
93. The afterlife of pagan inscriptions in Byzantium, with Anna Sitz
92. An insider’s guide to academic publishing, with Byzantine studies in mind, featuring Anna Henderson
91. Scavenging in the ruins of empire, with Robin Fleming
90. At the dawn of Byzantine Studies: Martin Crusius (1526-1607), with Richard Calis
89. The resilience and agency of rural communities, with Fotini Kondyli
88. Women’s labor, with Anna Kelley
87. Dragons! with Scott Bruce
86. How to organize a museum exhibition – and bring the Holy Land home, with Amanda Luyster
85. Lead mining and lead pollution in the Roman world, with Paul Stephenson
84. On writing narrative history, with guest-host Marion Kruse
83. Blinding as punishment and enforced disability, with Jake Ransohoff
82. What was First Iconoclasm about?, with Leslie Brubaker
81. Surviving the Mongol storm, with Nicholas Morton
80. Diagrams: from sundials to the schematics of the Trinity, with Linda Safran
79. The enduring power of ancient statues in Constantinople, with Paroma Chatterjee
78. How to be philanthropic in early Byzantine Christianity, with Dan Caner
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