Ethan Schmidt

Areas of interest

Medieval Byzantine literature and historiography, Byzantine rhetoric, urban space, collective memory, ekphrasis, manuscript culture, reception of antiquity in Byzantium, Komnenian culture and society, intellectual history, and legacy of Byzantium.

Education

• MSc, Late Antique, Byzantine, and Islamic Studies, University of Edinburgh
• BA, Medieval History, University of St. Andrews

Biography

Born and raised in Manhattan, Ethan Schmidt is a Byzantinist, writer, and lover of books. He attained an undergraduate degree in Medieval History from the University of St. Andrews, and an MSc in Late Antique, Byzantine, and Islamic Studies from the University of Edinburgh. At present, he is a PhD Candidate in Byzantine History and Literature attached to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University through the INS Program. His doctoral research is concerned with the construction of imaginary worlds, or the evocation of lost worlds, in the literature and historiography of the long twelfth century (c.1080–c.1217), with a particular focus on the descriptive technique of ekphrasis. His other academic interests include the literature and rhetoric of the period more broadly, authorial self-presentation, the dynamic and connective role played by classicizing learning in Byzantine society, urbanity and urban culture, and, most broadly, the cultural history and social realities of eleventh and twelfth century Byzantium.