Nikoloz Aleksidze received his doctorate at Oxford in 2013,
with a thesis in the Faculty of Oriental Studies, entitled Making, Remembering and Forgetting the Late Antique Caucasus. Previously (in 2009) he received an MA in Medieval Studies (with a specialization in Religious Studies) at the Central European University in Budapest, following on from a BA in Classics at Tbilisi State University. After his studies, he worked as an Assistant Professor in Philosophy at the Free University of Tbilisi and later as Dean of Social Sciences. At the Free University he taught Philosophy, intellectual history and regional (Caucasian) studies.
Nikoloz is currently completing a monograph based on his doctoral dissertation, entitled The Caucasian Schism as an Interpretive Schema. Another project of his, the Handbook of Classical Georgian, is currently also under completion.
His research interests include medieval, late antique and Caucasian studies, as well as wider memory and religious-identity studies (from both an historical and an anthropological perspective), and contemporary literary theory and oral traditions. Outside his scholarship, he writes regularly for a Georgian weekly journal, 24 Hours Weekend,on literature, religion and current political issues.
Within the framework of the project Nikoloz is collecting and analyzing the Armenian and Georgian written, epigraphic and material sources. He is particularly interested in the use, transformation and adaptation of the late antique cult of saints in medieval Armenian and Georgian political rhetoric, particularly of the saints that belonged to both Armenian and Georgian milieus. He is also interested in the interaction of pagan and Christian pantheons in the Caucasian highlands, and in the role saints play in modern secular vs. sacred discourse.
Publications (published or accepted):
Articles:
“Dialogues in the March-lands and the Arbiter Kings”, forthcoming proceedings of the conference Dialogues and Debates from late Antiquity to Late Byzantium, Keble College, Oxford, July 4-5 2013.
“Three Men and a Dog: the Oral Narratives of the Caucasian Schism” (To appear in Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU in 2014).
“The ‘Phenomenology’ of the Caucasian Schism”, Pro Georgia 22(2012), 71-87.
“Medieval Georgian Polemical Literature”, Scripta & e-Scripta 10-11(2012), 185-202.
“Early Caucasian Monasticism: Problems of Terminology”, Tsakhnagi 3 (2011), 195-208.
“Christology of Kyros of Alexandria: A Suggestion on Possible Crypto-Nestorianism of the Early Monoenergism” in The Caucasus between East and West, publications dedicated to the 75th anniversary of Zaza Aleksidze, Tbilisi: Artanuji, 2010, 347-363.
“The Role of Emperor Herakleios in Medieval Georgian Historiography,” Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU 16 (2010), 46-62.
“Unknown Georgian Manuscripts from the Monastery of Simono-Petra (Mt. Athos),” Mravaltavi 22 (2008), 214-225. (In Georgian)
Chapters in Edited Volumes
“Translations, Georgian”, Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Literature (forthcoming).
“The Caucasus: Armenia, Georgia, Albania”, Blackwell Companion of Religion in Late Antiquity (forthcoming).
Encyclopedia Contributions
Encyclopedia Caucasus Antiquus, vol. II/1, Tbilisi: Logos, 2014.(Tbilisi State University, Institute of Classical, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies): Entries on Greek and Roman Epigraphy in Albania, Armenia and Georgia. (In Georgian)
Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity: Entries on Georgia and Caucasian Albania.
Email: nikoloz.aleksidze@history.ox.ac.uk or aleksidze@gmail.com