Last Goodbye to the Leading Historian Angeliki E. Laiou

(GREEK NEWS AGENDA)   Angeliki E. Laiou, History Professor at Harvard University, died of cancer on Thursday, December 11, in Boston. Laiou, one of the world’s leading historians of Byzantine civilization, was born in Athens in 1941. In 1981 she joined Harvard University as Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine History and in 1985 she became the first woman to serve as chairman of a Department there. Her authorship includes fourteen monographs and edited books and countless articles on diverse aspects of Byzantine history – diplomatic and political history, economic history, family and the position of women in Byzantine society. Angeliki Laiou served as Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Republic and was also Member of Parliament in Greece between 2000 and 2002. In 1998, she was elected a permanent member of the Academy of Athens, the highest honor and achievement for academics of Greek nationality. At the time, she was only the second woman to be bestowed this honor since the Academy’s founding in 1926. Harvard University History Department – Obituary; The Times: Professor Angeliki Laiou: expert on women in the Byzantine empire 

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