It's been a busy term in the Department of Historical Studies with conferences, workshops, lectures, field trips and, of course, classes. We returned in January to filming at the Wien Musuem, co-host of our MA in Museum Studies, new language teaching offered (in Beginner Syriac) and the first workshop in the EurAsian Transformations Multilingualism's series (watch the keynote). At the same time, our faculty and students were presenting at international conferences outside Vienna, including in Würzburg, Lisbon and Rome.
Our Wednesday lunchtime research seminar continued with presentations from, among others, Rohan Basu, Tijana Krstic and Baukje van den Berg. Along with the Wednesday evening Doctoral Research Seminar and the EurAsia poster session in late March, we learnt a lot about the research of our colleagues this term!
Public lectures included Ingela Nilsson on storyworlds and Manuela Studer-Karlen gave the Anna Christidou Memorial Lecture on Beyond the Borders of Byzantium: The Migration of Liturgical Texts and Iconographies. Students from the department successfully hosted the 4th Late Antique and Byzantine Studies Graduate Workshop, co-organized with the University of Vienna, and planned the upcoming Receiving Byzantium, Byzantium Receiving conference, and the OTUGRAD: Ottoman and Turkish Studies Graduate Workshop.
Outside campus, the Intercultural Festival took place in January, and there was ice-skating, dance workshops, protests, and lectures at the University of Vienna. The end of term saw the Salam Salon, organized by students from our department. Throughout the term, our students also visited museums around Vienna, including the trip to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in the photo above.
Finally, we hosted the most prestigious event in our academic year: the Natalie Zemon Davis Memorial Lectures. Given by Lorraine Daston from the Max Planck Institute and the University of Chicago, the lectures explored how the concept of diversity has changed throughout history. Building on last year's successful lecture at the Albertina Museum in Vienna, this year the second lecture of the series too place at the Natural History Museum.