A conversation with Amy Kaufman and Paul Sturtevant about their book The Devil's Historians: How Modern Extremists Abuse the Medieval Past (University of Toronto Press 2020). Extremists groups such as white supremacists and ISIS use the Middle Ages to advocate for specific racial, religious, or gender orders, and promote violence as a means for attaining them. We talk about the contours and goals of these groups, their conflicted views of modernity and the Middle Ages, how Byzantium does or does not fit into this picture, and generally go off on many tangents. Also check out their complementary conversation with Danièle Cybulskie on The Medieval 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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