Nathan Websdale

DPhil Student

nathan.websdale@wolfson.ox.ac.uk

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 assesses Byzantium over a thirty-five-year period both before and after the fall of Constantinople to the Catholic Latin forces of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. I am interested in the relationship between urban centre and provinces, particularly in how texts and epigraphy depict ethnocultural differences. Parts of my thesis analyse depictions of ethnic 'otherization' within the former populations of the empire, in particular in the splinter-states of Epiros and Paphlagonia, and how these correlate to Byzantium's 'Roman' identity during a period of 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 Patriarch George II of Cyprus Scholarship.

ESL Teacher: ELC Anifadis, Chalkida, Greece

DPhil History: Wolfson College, University of Oxford, 2021–

Recipient of the Tsiter-Kontoupoulou Visiting Fellowship at the University of Vienna, 2025

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