Managing Emotion in Byzantium

Byzantinists entered the study of emotion with Henry Maguire's ground-breaking article on sorrow, published in 1977. Since then, classicists and western medievalists have developed new ways of understanding how emotional communities work and where the ancients' concepts of emotion differ from our own, and Byzantinists have begun to consider emotions other than sorrow. It is time to look at what is distinctive about Byzantine emotion. This volume is the first to look at the constellation of Byzantine emotions. Originating at an international colloquium at Dumbarton Oaks, these papers address issues such as power, gender, rhetoric, or asceticism in Byzantine society through the lens of a single emotion or cluster of emotions. Contributors focus not only on the construction of emotions with respect to perception and cognition but also explore how emotions were communicated and exchanged across broad (multi)linguistic, political and social boundaries. Priorities are twofold: to arrive at an understanding of what the Byzantines thought of as emotions and to comprehend how theory shaped their appraisal of reality. Managing Emotion in Byzantium will appeal to researchers and students alike interested in Byzantine perceptions of emotion, Byzantine Culture, and medieval perceptions of emotion.

Margaret Mullett, Honorary Professor, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh; former Director of Byzantine Studies, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC. Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Willard Prescott and Annie McClelland Smith Professor of History and Religion, Brown University.

1 Introduction / 2 Theorising Emotions: Methodological Tools for Research / 3 The Neighbour's Unbearable Wellbeing: Phthonos/Envy from the Classical to the Modern Greek World / 4 Compassion and Healing in Early Byzantium / 5 Managing Affect through Rhetoric: The Case of Pity / 6 Epithet and Emotion: Reflections on the Quality of Eleos in the Mother of God Eleousa / 7 Storge: Rethinking Gendered Emotion apropos of the Virgin Mary / 8 An Early Christian Understanding of Pride / 9 The Ascetic Construction of Emotions: Lupe and Akedia in the Works of Evagrios of Pontos / 10 Katepheia: From Heroic Failure to Christian Dejection / 11 Emotional Communities and the Loss of an Individual: The Case of Grief / 12 Grief and Joy in Byzantine Art / 13 Liturgical Emotion: Joy and Complexity in a Hymn of Romanos the Melodist for Easter / 14 Apolausis: Feelings at the Juncture between Body and Mind / 15 Poetry in Emotion: The Case of Anger / 16 Power and Fear: Awe before the Emperor in Byzantium