Well, That Was a Shit Show!
No! I am not talking about the American Presidential Debate.
I’m talking about my SSHRC application. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Basically, it is an extremely stressful application to get money from the Government to support your research, and my dumb ass thought it was due two weeks later than when it actually was! TODAY!
But fear not, friends, I submitted a couple of days ago. Yea, I banged that shit out. The back story is that I thought I had to apply directly to SSHRC which has a deadline of Oct. 17th. Unfortunately pour moi, I have to apply through my current university, and that deadline is Oct. 1st. YIPPEE! So, needless to say writing a PhD research proposal that will stand out from hundreds of applications in a two week period (because it was two weeks ago I found out about this due date), was one hell of a good time. It’s done and over with. Fingers crossed!
Now let’s get to the good shit!
I started back at the Nickle Galleries this week and boy did I miss my dead peeps! This week I continued re-organizing the Roman Imperial coins. Working my way from Augustus (whom I am sure we all know) to Maxentius (the guy that fought Constantine The Great [Was he though?], and lost, in 312 CE). Anyway, I spent six amazing hours looking at coins, relabeling, re-organizing and found some pretty cool AR coins. (The AR=argentum [Latin, 2nd declension, Neuter. argentum, argenti.] A little latin lesson for ya!). But I forgot to take some pictures for you. Lame, I know! But I will redeem myself and have a bunch for you next week. Also, Juno, She is a Badass will have its first post next week as well. Stay tuned for some BAD ASS…Ladies!
My next section of coins that I will work on is of Constantine and his Fam-Jam. Oh what a tumultuous few years. Family killing family. (Sounds like Thanksgiving at the in-laws??) Are we Christian? Are we Pagan? DAD TOLD ME I COULD RULE THE WORLD! NOT YOU!!! The question I will pose is this: How do we define this particular time period and how do you think the ancients defined it?
The reason I ask this is because it has flipped back and forth in academia. There really is no agreement on this shit. Some academics use the rule of Constantine and the moving of the Roman capital to Constantinople (modern day Istanbul, Turkey) as the beginning of the Byzantine Empire. Others use 498 CE, the reign of Anastasius and his monetary reform. Some go even further past that date. For myself, its all bull and here is why. No one in the ancient world even called themselves Byzantines! Read Anthony Kaldellis’ AMAZING book Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium. It’s so F@k’n good.
Edward Gibbon
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Portrait, oil on canvas, of Edward Gibbon by Sir Joshua Reynolds courtesy of Wikipedia! thx By’s!
Ps: I do not get kickbacks or paid to promote any books on this site. These are my opinions alone and if I love a book I will say so. If I don’t like a book, I will definitely F@k’n say so. Like the book Gibbons wrote way back in the 18th century that…well, let’s say it is not overly accurate in its representation of the Roman Empire. But you need to know his work to understand why the discipline has evolved the way it has. SO, READ THAT SHIT!
Now, Kaldellis’ book does have its problems, and all great books do, but I am not going to get into that now. I did do a review of it (it’s not published because I ain’t that good and it was for my Grad Class), so maybe I will edit it and get it up here for you to read…if you want to. Ok, back to my point. Byzantium is a made-up label for a society that thought of themselves as Romans!
SAY WHHAAAA!?
Yea! It’s funny when you think about it
“Hey, you know those people who thought of themselves as Romans?”
“Yea, what of it Paul?”
“I think they are Byzantines, Thomas, and we should call them that.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Ok".”
BOOM! I’m pretty sure that is how it went down. On a serious note, this label is very problematic because it distorts our view of the ancient world, how identities were understood and how the ancients understood themselves as a society. This becomes an even bigger problem when we display Roman coins in the museum. How do we describe them? Especially coins that come from the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th. centuries and beyond. What does it say when we lump all these bad boys into one group and call them Byzantine? It says that Byzantine scholarship needs to serious do some inner reflection on itself and why we keep using inappropriate labels for a society that had never called themselves Byzantines! WTF?
And now the shameless plug. I will be doing a virtual exhibition on this very topic in January with the coins I am currently working with. So, on that note, I will end this post with that teaser, if you call it a teaser, and will ask for your thoughts on the matter. Seriously.