The Fall Meeting of the Delaware Valley Medieval Association

“Gender in Byzantium: Textual, Visual, Material”

Saturday, September 26, 2026 – Bryn Mawr College, Old Library, Room 224, 1pm

  • Cecily Hilsdale, “Reading Female Presence in a Male Ivory Diptych: Concordia, Captivity, and Galla Placidia’s Two Marriages”
  • Elizabeth Dospel Williams, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, “Beauty across the Seas: Crafting and Wearing Lapis Lazuli in Late Antiquity”
  • Leonora Neville, University of Wisconsin, Madison, “Ancient Roman Women in Medieval East Roman Memory”
  • Alicia Walker, Bryn Mawr College, “Lived Paideia and the Material Culture of Women’s Everyday Practices in Byzantium”

A reception will follow the symposium.

Free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by the Delaware Valley Medieval Association and the Center for Visual Culture, the Program in Middle Eastern, North African, and Central Asian Studies, Medieval Area Studies, and the Department of History of Art, Bryn Mawr College.

Bryn Mawr is accessible by public transit from Philadelphia via SEPTA “Paoli/Thorndale Line” to Bryn Mawr Station. Old Library is a 10 minute walk from the Bryn Mawr Station. Parking on Bryn Mawr’s campus is free. A campus map is accessible here: https://www.brynmawr.edu/sites/default/files/media/documents/2024-10/BMC_Website_Map.pdf. Visitor parking is marked by a red “P”. “Old Library” is located in the lower right of the map, next to “Canaday Library”. Room 224 is on the second floor of Old Library in the corner of the building closest to “Rockefeller Hall” Those traveling by train should enter the campus at “Rockefeller Hall” through “Rockefeller Arch” at the corner of Yarrow Street and North Merion Ave — Old Library will be the large, historic building directly in front of you after passing through Rockefeller Arch.