Zeynep Olgun
Zeynep Olgun holds an MA degree in Comparative History with a specialization in Late Antique, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies from Central European University in Vienna. Her thesis, titled “A Sailor's Life for Me: The Middle Byzantine Sailor on Board and at Port,” received the Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies Best Thesis Award (2022). Prior to this, Zeynep completed an MA in Archaeology and Art History with a specialization in Maritime Archaeology at Koç University in Istanbul, where she was an MA Fellow at the Koç University Mustafa V. Koç Maritime Archaeology Research Center. During this time, she was involved in the Yenikapı Byzantine Shipwrecks Project while writing her thesis on "Timber Supply for Byzantine Shipbuilding." Zeynep is also a founding member of Bizantolog, a social network for Byzantinists in Turkey.
Zeynep Olgun's research centers on Byzantine approaches to, perceptions of, and experiences with the sea. She is dedicated to integrating textual and material sources into the study of all maritime aspects of the Byzantine Empire. Currently, she is working on her PhD thesis titled 'The Ship in Byzantine Culture and Society (7th – 13th centuries).
O1 Ancient and Medieval Societies and States over the First Millennium
Organiser and Moderator for Panel ‘No Island Is an Island’: The Byzantine Insular Networks from Late Antiquity to the Medieval Period, International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, Leeds, 3–6 July 2023.
How Byzantine Sailors Experienced Maritime Mobility.” Panel Moving Byzantium, I: Professional Mobility Within the Byzantine Empire organized by the University of Vienna, International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, Leeds, 3–6 July 2023.
(invited) “A Future for the Byzantine Past: A Personal Insight into Byzantine Studies in Turkey by a Graduate Student.” speaker, Byzantine Studies in Turkey Through the Eyes of Early Career Byzantinists, Sixth International Sevgi Gönül Byzantine Studies Symposium, Istanbul, 22 – 24 June 2023.
(invited) “Bizans’ta Deniz ve Deniclik” [Sea and Seafaring in Byzantium], ARETE Projesi Bizans Dünyası ve Kültürü Çevrimiçi Semineri, 21 May 2023.
(invited) “Furious Waves and Violent Winds: Shipwrecking and Salvation in Eighth–Tenth Century Byzantine Saint’s Lives.” the PhD Symposium group within the Ancient, Byzantine, and Medieval Cluster of the Doctoral School of Historical and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna, 12 May 2023.
“The Most Disastrous Moment: Shipwrecking in the Middle Byzantine Period.” Medieval History Graduate Workshop, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 9 March 2023.
“Floating Communities: Shipboard Society in Byzantium.” Oxford University Byzantine Society 25th International Graduate Conference, University of Oxford, Oxford, 23 – 25 February 2023.
“Expressions of Piety by Byzantine Seafarers.” Oceanic and Maritime History Workshop, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 21 October 2022.
“A Sailor’s Life for Me: The Middle Byzantine Sailor on Board and at Port.” Graduate Workshop of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, co-organised by Central European University and University of Vienna, Vienna, 1 April 2022.
(invited) “Trans-, Inter-, Multidisciplinarity: Illusion or Reality? - Roundtable with Medieval Studies Students”, speaker. Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Vienna. 3 November 2021.
“Setting Ships Afire: Timber Politics of Byzantium.” 1st Graduate Student Forum of Byzantium at Ankara, online, 27–27 June 2020.
“Byzantine Shipbuilding in the Eastern Mediterranean Between 5th and 11th Centuries: A Comparative Approach.” Third International Conference on Byzantine and Medieval Studies, Byzantinist Society of Cyprus, Nicosia, 17–19 January 2020.
“Ghosts of the Navigators: The Serçe Limanı Shipwreck and Intercultural Exchange.” Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies Sixth International Graduate Conference: Cultural Entanglement, Transfer and Contention in Mediterranean Communities from Antiquity to the Present, Central European University, Budapest, 30 May–1 June 2019.
“Islands as hubs of mobility from the early Roman Empire to Late Antiquity (27 B.C.-640 A.D.).” (with Luca Zavagno), XXV Finnish Symposium on Late Antiquity “Seafaring, Mobility and The Mediterranean in Late Antiquity (Ca. 150 – 700 Ce), Tvärminne, 26–27 October 2018.
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(forthcoming) Olgun, Zeynep. “Sailing Around Byzantine Constantinople.” Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU 29, 2023.
Dönbekçi, Şebnem, Bahattin Bayram, and Zeynep Olgun. “Byzantium in Exile.” In Is Byzantine Studies a Colonialist Discipline?: Toward a Critical Historiography, edited by Benjamin Anderson and Mirela Ivanova, 58–71. Penn State University Press, 2023.
Zavagno, Luca, and Zeynep Olgun. “‘Stepping across Thresholds’: Islands as Resilient Spaces of Connectivity in the Passage from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages.” In Seafaring and Mobility in the Late Antique Mediterranean, edited by Antti Lampinen and Emilia Mataix Ferrándiz, 114–30. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022.
Zavagno, Luca, and Zeynep Olgun. “The Emperors, the Caliph(s) and the Doctor: Cross-Cultural Encounters and Interactions on the ‘Periphery’ of Byzantium (ca. 650-950).” In Mediterranean Mosaic: History and Art, edited by Erminio Fonzo and Hilary A. Haakenson, 9–22. Fisciano: ICSR Mediterranean Knowledge, 2019.