Julian Wood
Julian has a BA in History & English from the University of Oxford, where he was a 1959 Scholar at Pembroke College. He then stayed on at Oxford for an MPhil in Late Antique & Byzantine Studies under the supervision of Phil Booth, which investigated the miraculous powers of sacred images during the first centuries of Christian-Muslim interactions in Syria. His current PhD project, supervised by Peter Sarris, is generously funded by the AHRC and a Vice Chancellor's Award.
Julian is also a co-convenor of the Legal & Social History Workshop, and of the Gonville & Caius Brooke Society speaker series in History. He also maintains a significant interest in access and outreach initiatives for both History and English, including teaching and lecturing for the Cambridge Higher Aspirations Scheme, and producing school-level resources on Byzantium for the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies (for whom he is also a Graduate Associate of the Executive Committee).
Julian's current project investigates the theological possibilities of colour in the iconoclastic crises that rocked Christian communities in Byzantium and the Levant between c. 650-900. He is broadly interested in the ways in which religious communities manage excesses of expectation when confronted with sacred objects, and how these might manifest if left unchecked. Using sources in Arabic, Greek, Latin, and Syriac, as well as archaeological remains, Julian hopes to uncover how and why worried Christians and Muslims destroyed or modified their holy artworks, and which aspects of these items might have been filled with the greatest potential 'danger' for unscrupulous worshippers. As part of this, Julian is also interested in what such groups chose as alternatives to traditional artistic styles, and his research also encompasses the development - before and after the period of iconoclasm - of 'aniconic' decorative styles that omitted images of living creatures.
As well as Byzantium and the Islamic World, Julian maintains an interest in Anglo-Saxon and North Sea History as a result of his undergraduate studies in Medieval English. He continues to use this historical arena in his outreach work, and is keen to consider its possible connections to the eastern Mediterranean of his PhD study.
History Tripos, Part I:
Paper O1: Ancient and Medieval States and Societies over the First Millennium
Paper O2: The British Isles in the Middle Ages, c. 800 to c. 1500
[Old Tripos] Paper 2: British Political History 300-1100AD
Part II:
Historical Argument and Practice
The Near East in the Age of Justinian and Muhammad, AD 527-700
‘Following the Unholy Lance: Pierced Icons, Polemic, and Theophany in the Age of Iconoclasm’, Sociedad Española de Bizantinística XIX Jornadas de Bizancio (24-27 January 2022). Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
‘The Patriarch’s Polychromatic Pamphlet: “Chromatomachoi” and Nikephoros I’s Adversus Iconomachos’, The 47th Annual Conference of the Byzantine Studies Association of North America (9-12 December 2021). Case Western Reserve University/The Cleveland Museum of Art.
[By Invitation]. ‘Ḏimmī-s, ‘Dullness’, and Deified Objects : Theodore Abū Qurrah and Idol-worship in 9th-century Syria’, The Dartmouth College Jewish Studies Faculty Seminar (26 October 2021). Dartmouth College.
‘“Those who disbelieve fight in the cause of idols”: Theodore Abu Qurrah and the ‘Life’ of Holy Images in 9th-Century Syria’, The 18th Annual conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions (30 August – 3 September 2021). University of Pisa.
‘To Fight a Schism with a Surah: The Islamic Lexis of Christian Image-Debates in 9th-Century Syria’, The Third Colloquia Ceranea International Conference (15-17 April 2021). University of Łódź.
‘Without Theophany in Monochrome? Investigating “Theology in Colour” in 8th-Century Palestine’, The Cambridge Graduate Early Medieval Seminar (4 March, 2021). University of Cambridge.
‘“For this does not define Peter only, but also Paul and John”: Theodore of Stoudios on Representing the Unique Self’, The Oxford University Byzantine Society’s 23rd International Graduate Conference (26-28 February, 2021), University of Oxford.
‘Remnants of Consubstantiality? Shattered Images and Immanence in Byzantine Iconoclasm’, The 26th Annual Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium (18-19 February, 2021). The Courtauld Institute of Art, London.
‘The Burning Question of Damaged Icons in the Age of Iconoclasm’, 4th Edinburgh International Graduate Conference in Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies (19-20 November, 2020), University of Edinburgh.
‘Between “Chroma” and Christology: The Role and Function of Colour in the Three Treatises of John of Damascus’, The Oxford University Byzantine Society’s 22nd International Graduate Conference (28-29 February 2020). University of Oxford.
Administration:
Co-convenor & Session Chair – 'Entanglements': The 2023 AHRC International Conference (18-20 September 2023). University of Oxford.
Member of the Organising Committee (Abstracts & Panels) –The Oxford University Byzantine Society’s 23rd International Graduate Conference (26-28 February, 2021). University of Oxford.
Member of the Organising Committee & Panel Chair – The Oxford University Byzantine Society’s 22nd International Graduate Conference (28-29 February 2020). University of Oxford.