Nathan Websdale

Thesis Title:

Panspermía and the Romaíoi: Performative Ethnicity and the Weaponization of Space in Byzantium’s Post-Imperial Networks 1200-1235.

Research Topic:

My doctoral research looks at the tumultuous years of Byzantium before and after the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade. I am primarily interested in the relationship between province and capital as well as depictions of ethnic 'otherization' and projected ethnogenesis within the empire in correlation to Byzantium's 'Roman' identity undergoing a period of redefinition and contraction. With this in mind, I analyse and discuss the contrast between elite Byzantines' ecumenical ideology compared to their increasingly narrow sense of community.

Additional Research Interests:

Byzantium, Crusader Studies, Slavonic Studies, Despotate of Epiros, History of the Caucasus, Classical Greece, Late Antiquity, Historical Sociology, Anglo-Saxon England, Napoleon, Ottoman Empire, Epistolography, Network Studies, Environmental History.

Supervisor: Dr Ida Toth

https://oxford.academia.edu/NathanWebsdale

President, Oxford University Byzantine Society (2022-2023)

Graduate Outreach Tutor, Researcher in Residence: Faculty of History

Educational Background:

BA History (First Class) : Royal Holloway, University of London, 2016.

MA Late Antique and Byzantine Studies (Merit):  Intercollegiate University of London, 2017.

• Recipient of the Gregory II of Cyprus Scholarship.

ESL Teacher: ELC Anifadis, Chalkida, Greece

DPhil History: Wolfson College, University of Oxford 2021–

Affiliations:

Royal Historical Society - Postgraduate Member

Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies - Member

Epiros: The Other Western Rome - Convenor

Dumbarton Oaks Coins and Seals Summer Programme - Participant

Tsiter-Kontoupoulou Visiting Fellowship: University of Vienna, 2025