Professor Angeliki Laiou: expert on women in the Byzantine empire (Obit.)
Professor Angeliki E. Laiou was a distinguished historian who pioneered the study of the social and economic history of the Byzantine Empire — the medieval successor to the Roman Empire in the East.
She was born in Athens in 1941. Her family originated partly from the Greek communities of the western Black Sea coast. She began her university studies in 1958-59 at the University of Athens (where the leading Greek Byzantinist, Dionysios Zakythenos, kindled her interest in Byzantium). She then moved to the US, where she obtained her BA from Brandeis University in 1961 and PhD from Harvard in 1966 under the supervision of Robert Lee Wolff, a historian of the Latin empire of Constantinople.
Except for a stint as instructor at the University of Louisiana in 1962, Laiou’s academic career was confined to New England: instructor and then assistant professor at Harvard, 1966-72; associate professor, professor and distinguished professor at Brandeis University, 1972-81; and finally Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine History, a prestigious position which she held from 1981 until her death.
Read entire article at Times (of London)
She was born in Athens in 1941. Her family originated partly from the Greek communities of the western Black Sea coast. She began her university studies in 1958-59 at the University of Athens (where the leading Greek Byzantinist, Dionysios Zakythenos, kindled her interest in Byzantium). She then moved to the US, where she obtained her BA from Brandeis University in 1961 and PhD from Harvard in 1966 under the supervision of Robert Lee Wolff, a historian of the Latin empire of Constantinople.
Except for a stint as instructor at the University of Louisiana in 1962, Laiou’s academic career was confined to New England: instructor and then assistant professor at Harvard, 1966-72; associate professor, professor and distinguished professor at Brandeis University, 1972-81; and finally Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine History, a prestigious position which she held from 1981 until her death.