Coordinator : Ilias Anagnostakis
Team Members: Maria Leontsini, Gerasimos Merianos, Niki Tsironis
External Research Associates: Christine Angelidi (research director emerita), Eftychia Papadopoulou, G.T. Calofonos.

The Programme (established in 2000) aims to explore aspects of Byzantine everyday life, their relation to material culture and their formalisation into coherent systems of representation. Research activity includes analysis and interpretation of Byzantine perceptions and intellectual attitudes, and the response expressed by literature and art to the demands of collective or individualised audiences. Therefore, research relies on a variety of sources: texts and works of art, objects and other remains of material culture. For achieving its objectives the Programme established an important network of collaborations with academics and independent researchers in Greece and abroad. Furthermore, the team's activities include the organisation of workshops and conferences; the members of the research team actively participate in various research projects in Greece and abroad, and in advisory boards set by cultural foundations and associations.

Currently the Programme covers two thematic orientations:

1. ''Technology and Management of Olive Oil and Wine''

This orientation focuses on (a) the development of technology for producing and storing wine, olive oil, honey and milk, and (b) the impact of the products' cultivation, production and trade in the economy of Byzantium and Eastern Mediterranean during the Middle Ages.

2. ''Perceptions, Attitudes and Modes of Expression''

This orientation focuses on (a) stability, change and renewal of the social and moral regulations that regard the body, the senses and the emotions, and their gender implications, and (b) the passage from collective to individual attitudes. Byzantine views on economic phenomena, and the investigation of the imaginary world of the Byzantines are important components of the project.
The direction also includes the preparation and publication on the web of the digitised database ''Dreaming in Byzantium'', which aims at providing a tool for the study of the function and use of dreaming in Byzantium by recording dream reports from a variety of sources. The trial version of the database is accessible through the address: dib.eie.gr.

Seminar lectures by invited scholars

• Professor Carolina Cupane (University of Vienna): Λογοτεχνικές εικόνες και ιδεολογικά πρότυπα: Οι ήρωες του βυζαντινού μυθιστορήματος / Literary Images and Ideological models: The Heroes of the Byzantine Novel (6 December 2006).
• Professor Judith Herrin (King's College, London): The Lure of Byzantium: Byzantine Princesses in the West (1 February 2008).
• Professor Dennis Tedlock (SUNY at Buffalo): Hearing Voices in Mayan Texts: From Hieroglyphs to the Alphabet (26 May 2008).

Organisation of International Symposia

• 2000: ''The Awaking of the Senses and of Personal Choices'' (Athens, IBR/NHRF, 24-25 November).
• 2005: ''The Book in Byzantium: Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Bookbinding'' (in collaboration with the IBR Programme ''Archival, Palaeographical and Diplomatic Research''; Athens, 13-16 November).
• 2006: ''Monemvasian Wine - Monovas(i)a - Malvasia'' (in collaboration with the IBR Programme ''Historical Geography of the Greek Region''; Athens, IBR/NHRF, 19-20 May).
• 2008: ''Dreams and Visions in Late Antiquity and Byzantium'' (Athens, IBR/NHRF, 23-24 May).
• 2008: ''Animals and Environment in Byzantium (7th-12th centuries)'' (Athens, IBR/NHRF, 6-7 June).

Recent publications

• 2004: Byzantium Matures. Choices, Sensitivities and Modes of Expression (Eleventh to Fifteenth Centuries), ed. Ch. Angelidi.
• 2005: K. Nikolaou, The Woman in the Middle Byzantine Period. Social Models and Everyday Life in the Hagiographical Texts.
• 2006: A. Kazhdan, A History of Byzantine Literature (850-1000), ed. Ch. Angelidi.
• 2006: Monemvasian Wine - Monovas(i)a - Malvasia, ed. I. Anagnostakis.
• 2008: I. Anagnostakis, Wine Culture in Byzantium: The Bithynian Example.