Niels Gaul

Prof. Gaul will be on research leave during the academic year 2013/14.

Niels Gaul teaches Byzantine history, culture and rhetoric from c.600 to 1453, as well as Greek palaeography and current literary and discourse theory. He is particularly interested in the later Byzantine empire; his recent work has looked at various social performances – be it in the form of rhetorical ‘theatre’ or (staged) miracles – and at the scholarly networks permeating late Byzantine society. He has recently finished a monograph on the social and political ramifications of Byzantine paideia (‘scholarship’) in the early fourteenth century, Thomas Magistros und die spätbyzantinische Sophistik (2011), and is embarking on two new projects: a handbook of Greek palaeography & Byzantine manuscript studies; and a monograph on the connection of mimēsis, (rhetorical) self-fashioning, and the revival of civic spirit from the middle through the late Byzantine periods.

Since joining CEU, Gaul has hosted international workshops on ‘Charismatic authority, spiritual friendship: comparative approaches to networks of learning, Byzantine east and Latin west, c.1000–c.1200’ (jointly with Dr Sita Steckel, 2008) and on ‘Centre and periphery in the age of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos: from De ceremoniis to De administrando imperio’ (jointly with the Archaeological Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Prof. Volker Menze, 2009). The proceedings of both events are due to appear in 2013.

Gaul presently serves as director of the Medieval Studies Doctoral Program. He is a member of the editorial board of the recently established Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library/Byzantine Greek series.

He taught at the universities of Oxford, Cologne, and Bonn prior to joining CEU.