Smarnakis Ioannis

Lecturer (tenured)

Academic field: Social and Cultural History of Byzantium

Official Government Gazette, Issue: 1916/18.10.2019 τ. Γ΄.

Yannis Smarnakis received his university degree in History and Archaeology from the University of Athens in 1993. His postgraduate studies were in Byzantine History at the Universities of Athens and Brussels. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Athens in 2005 with a thesis on the subject “Renaissance and Byzantium: The Case Study of Plethon”. He has taught courses of Byzantine History at the University of Ioannina and the University of the Aegean. In 2013 he was appointed lecturer in Social and Cultural History of Byzantium at the University of Aegean. His research interests mainly concern the social and cultural history of the late Byzantine era with an emphasis on issues related to the construction of identities and otherness, the history of the political thought, the perceptions of the past, the urban revolts and the historiography about Byzantium.

Books

2023: The Late Byzantine Romance in Context. Narrativity and Identities in the Mediterranean (13th -16th centuries), co-edited with Z. Ainalis, London and New York: Routledge (forthcoming).

2017: Byzantine Renaissance and Utopia: Plethon and the Despotate of Mistra, Athens: Eurasia (in Greek).



Selection of articles and book chapters

2023: “Identities and Narrativity in a Mediterranean Context (13th – 16th centuries): A brief introduction”, in Y. Smarnakis and Z. Ainalis (eds), The Late Byzantine Romance in Context. Narrativity and Identities in the Mediterranean (13th -16th centuries), London and New York: Routledge (forthcoming).

2023: “Narrative representations of space in the Tale of Imperios and Margarona: Constructing the image of a ‘global’ Mediterranean for a popular audience”, in Y. Smarnakis and Z. Ainalis (eds), The Late Byzantine Romance in Context. Narrativity and Identities in the Mediterranean (13th -16th centuries), London and New York: Routledge (forthcoming).

2023: “Constructing the image of a city-state ‘at the mid-point of most of Asia’. Bessarion’s encomium on Trebizond”, Byzantina Symmeikta 33, 71-101. Available at: https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/bz/article/view/30934

2022: “Political Power, Space, and Identities in the State of Epiros (1205–1318)”, in D. Parnell, M. Stewart και C. Whately (eds), The Routledge Handbook on Byzantine Identities, London and New York: Routledge, 300-311.

2022: “The Uprisings of the Zealots and the Ciompi: Political Violence, Rituals and Transformations of the Urban Space”, in C. Gaganakis, N. Giantsi – Meletiadi, M. Dourou – Heliopoulou, M. Papathanasiou and K. Raptis (eds), European Cities in Crisis. From the Middle Ages to the Present, Athens: Herodotos, 113-134 (with Eleni Tounta, in Greek).

2021: “Nikos Svoronos and the Social History of Byzantium”, Nea Estia 1887, [Special Issue: Spyros Asdrachas – Nikos Svoronos], 506-513 (in Greek).

2018: “Thessaloniki during the Zealots’ Revolt (1342-1350): Power, Political Violence and the Transformation of the Urban Space”, Scandinavian Journal of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 4, 119-147. Available at: https://journals.lub.lu.se/sjbmgs/article/view/19702

2015: “Rethinking Roman Identity after the Fall (1453): Perceptions of ‘Romanitas’ by Doukas and Sphrantzes”, Byzantina Symmeikta 25, 211-234. Available at: http://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/bz/article/view/3860/9040

2007: “A Contribution to the Archaeology of Modern Utopian Thought: History and Utopia in Plethon’s Oeuvre”, Historein 7, 103-113. Available at: http://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/historein/article/view/2143/1983

2005: “Ancient History and Hermeneutical Strategies in Plethon”, in T. Kioussopoulou, (ed.), 1453: The Fall of Constantinople and the Transition from Medieval to Modern Times, Herakleio: Crete University Press, 173-181 (in Greek).

2000: “Internet and Textual Representations of Virtual Cities: The Case Study of Multi User Domains (M.U.D.’s)”, in Proceedings of the 2nd International Congress: The City in Modern Times. Mediterranean and Balkan aspects (19th – 20th centuries), Athens: EMNE Mnemon, 285-295 (with Angelos Vlachos, in Greek).

1998: “Social Hierarchies in Plethon’s Texts and their Models”, Symmeikta 12, 215-236 (in Greek).

 

Contact

Undergraduate Courses

H-214 Introduction to the Social and Cultural History of Byzantium
special background, specialised general knowledge

Graduate Courses

CHC-2 Ruptures in Macro- and Microhistory: The Byzantine world after 1204
MA in Crisis and Historical Change

Courses taught

H-286 Utopias and Dystopias in the Byzantine World (elective course)

Undergraduate

H-214 Introduction to the Social and Cultural History of Byzantium
special background, specialised general knowledge

Postgraduate Courses

CHC-2 Ruptures in Macro- and Microhistory: The Byzantine world after 1204
Smarnakis Ioannis