Leonora Neville
John W. and Jeanne M. Rowe Associate Professor of Byzantine History

Email: lneville@wisc.edu
Phone: (608) 263-1814
Office: 4106 Mosse Humanities
Mailbox:  4013 Mosse Humanities

Curriculum Vitae: View PDF

Office Hours: Mondays 3:30 - 5:00

Education: PhD:Princeton University 1998 ; BA: Yale University 1992

Bio Sketch:

I am an historian of the medieval eastern Mediterranean, specializing in the society and culture of the eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire) in the ninth through twelfth centuries.  I have strong interests in the late antique and classical antecedents of the medieval eastern Mediterranean cultures.

Within medieval Byzantine history, my particular research interests include:

• Gender; medieval conceptions of masculinity 
• Historical memory and historiography; particularly medieval historical memory of classical Roman and Greek culture
• Religious practice & experience; continuities with ancient religions
• Provincial community organization and self-regulation
• Women’s economic and legal self-determination
• Rhetoric and performance in provincial legal transactions
• The imposition of imperial governmental authority in provincial contexts, especially taxation

Selected Publications:

• “Lamentation, History, and Female Authorship in Anna Komnene’s Alexiad,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 53.1, (2013): 192–218. http://grbs.library.duke.edu/article/view/14689/3827
• co-author with Irina Tamarkina, Guide to Byzantine Historiography, under contract with Cambridge University Press
• Heroes and Romans in Twelfth-Century Byzantium: The Material for History of Nikephoros Bryennios, Cambridge University Press, October 2012
• Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society: 950-1100, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; Paperback reprint, 2008
• “Strong Women and their Husbands in Byzantine Historiography.” In The Byzantine World, ed. Paul Stephenson, Routledge, 2010, 72-82.
• “A history of Caesar John Doukas in Nikephoros Bryennios’s Material for History?” In Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 32.2 (2008) 168-188.
• “Taxing Sophronia’s Son-in-Law: Representations of Women in Provincial Documents.” In Women in Byzantium: Varieties of Experience, 800-1200, ed. Lynda Garland, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006, 75-87.
• “Information, ceremony and power in Byzantine fiscal registers: varieties of function in the Cadaster of Thebes,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 25 (2001): 20-43.
  

Awards:

• Co-Winner of the Prize in Memory of Nikolaos Panagiotakis, 2007 edition, for the essay “Power-Hungry Byzantine Empresses and Theodora’s Rhetorical Legacy: the functions of women in Byzantine historical narrative” given by the Università Ca’Foscari in Venice and the Greek Ministry of Culture.
• Dumbarton Oaks Bliss Prize Fellowship 1992-1994

Courses Taught:

Lecture Courses:

• History 112 - The World of Late Antiquity, 200-900 C.E - Syllabus 2012 (pdf)
• History 313 - Introduction to Byzantine History and Civilization - Syllabus 2012 (pdf)

Undergraduate Seminars:

• History 200 - Historical Studies - Topic: "Crusades: Violence and Religion" Syllabus 2011 (pdf)
• History 500 - Byzantine Empresses and their Men - Syllabus 2010 (pdf)
• History 600 - Advanced Seminar in History - Topics: "Women, Men & Eunuchs: Gender in Byzantium" Syllabus 2012 (pdf)

Graduate Courses:

• History 813 - Seminar in Byzantine History - Topics: "Greek Historiography From Antiquity Through Byzantium" Syllabus 2011 (pdf)
• History 952 - Seminar in Comparative History - Syllabus 952 (pdf)