Degree Date
2026
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
History of Art
Abstract
This dissertation reexamines the legacies of Greco-Roman theater in medieval Byzantine visual and material culture and disrupts the centuries-long scholarly narrative that theater disappeared in the Byzantine Empire. In contrast to the textual focus of previous scholarship, I center visual culture within a broad perspective to illuminate the evolution of theater and theatrical performance in Byzantium. My multi-medial and interdisciplinary approach is grounded in a novel theoretical and methodological framework rooted in theories of cultural memory and performance studies, combined with art historical and archaeological methods. I reveal, for the first time, the profound role theater played in Byzantine culture as a primary mechanism through which imperial power and elite identity were created, retained, and performed.
In the first half of the dissertation, I synthesize the textual and archaeological remains of ancient theater in medieval imperial chronicles and in the medieval afterlives of theater buildings. Although this evidence is often noted by other scholars, I am the first to consider these fragments as a coherent and purposeful corpus of evidence. Both of these chapters expose the ways in which theater—textually and physically—could be refit to shape the foundational identities of the social elite and urban centers, respectively. In the second half of the dissertation, I posit that theater’s historical connection to ancient Greco-Roman education and elite power was harnessed in medieval Byzantium as a sign of erudition integral to the construction of elite identity. This suggests that the cultural ii i memory of the theater should be understood as an additional, heretofore unexplored, facet the Classicizing impulses of medieval Byzantine culture.
I do not attempt to impose a singular theory of cultural memory or performance on all the evidence presented here. Just as theater played many different roles in ancient society, so too did the legacies of theater in medieval Byzantium. By allowing for fluidity and embracing the heterogeneity of these legacies, I highlight the ways in which theater was adapted, reshaped, and experienced in different contexts and with different functions and results to suit specific cultural and societal needs.
Citation
Gittleman, Elena. 2026. "The Show Must Go On: Legacies of Ancient Theater in Middle Byzantine Visual Culture (ca. 843–1204)." PhD Diss, Bryn Mawr College.