Angeliki E. Laiou ( el, Αγγελική Λαΐου;

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

, 6 April 1941 –

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, 11 December 2008) was a

Greek-American Greek Americans ( el, Ελληνοαμερικανοί ''Ellinoamerikanoí'' ''Ellinoamerikánoi'' ) are Americans of full or partial Greek ancestry. The lowest estimate is that 1.2 million Americans are of Greek descent while the highest es ...

Byzantinist Byzantine studies is an interdisciplinary branch of the humanities that addresses the history, culture, demography, dress, religion/theology, art, literature/epigraphy, music, science, economy, coinage and politics of the Eastern Roman Empire. T ...

and politician. She taught at the University of Louisiana,

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , pro ...

, and

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

. She was Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine Studies at Harvard from 1981 until her death. From 2000 to 2002, she was also a member of the

Hellenic Parliament The Hellenic Parliament ( el, Ελληνικό Κοινοβούλιο, Elliniko Kinovoulio; formally titled el, Βουλή των Ελλήνων, Voulí ton Ellínon, Boule (ancient Greece), Boule of the Greeks, Hellenes, label=none), also kno ...

for the

Panhellenic Socialist Movement The Panhellenic Socialist Movement ( el, Πανελλήνιο Σοσιαλιστικό Κίνημα, Panellínio Sosialistikó Kínima, ), known mostly by its acronym PASOK, (; , ) is a social-democratic political party in Greece. Until 2012, it ...

(PASOK): she served as Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs for six months in 2000.

Early life and education

Laiou was born in

on 6 April 1941 to a

Pontic Pontic, from the Greek ''pontos'' (, ), or "sea", may refer to: The Black Sea Places * The Pontic colonies, on its northern shores * Pontus (region), a region on its southern shores * The Pontic–Caspian steppe, steppelands stretching from no ...

family,

refugees A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

from the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...

coast of modern

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. She studied at the

Athens College Athens College ( el, Κολλέγιο(ν) Αθηνών; formally Hellenic-American Educational Foundation (HAEF)) is a co-educational private preparatory school in Psychiko, Greece, a suburb of Athens, part of the Hellenic-American Educational ...

and continued her studies in the Philosophy School of the

University of Athens The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA; el, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών, ''Ethnikó ke Kapodistriakó Panepistímio Athinón''), usually referred to simply as the Univers ...

(1958–59), where she studied under the Greek Byzantinist

Dionysios Zakythinos Dionysios A. Zakythinos or Zakythenos ( el, Διονύσιος Α. Ζακυθηνός; 1905 in Lixouri, Kefalonia – 18 January 1993, in Athens) was a leading Greek Byzantinist. Zakythinos was born in Kefalonia in 1905. After graduating from the ...

, who awakened her interest in the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

. She moved to

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , pro ...

from where she graduated with her BA in 1961, and completed a post-graduate course and received her PhD from

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1966, under the supervision of

Robert Lee Wolff Robert Lee Wolff (26 December 1915, New York City – 11 November 1980, Cambridge, Massachusetts) was a Harvard history professor, known for his 1956 book ''The Balkans in our time'' "This addition to the American Foreign Policy Library Series is ...

, one of the leading historians of the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...

. Her doctoral thesis became the basis for her first book, published in 1972 as ''Constantinople and the Latins: The Foreign Policy of Andronicus II, 1282–1328''.

Academic career

In 1962, she went to lecture at the University of Louisiana, before returning to Harvard, where she stayed from 1966 to 1972, first as instructor and then as assistant professor. She then moved to

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , pro ...

, where she remained until 1981, becoming distinguished professor. During this period, she also taught at Rutgers College of

. In 1981, she returned to Harvard to occupy the prestigious Dumbarton Oaks Professorship of Byzantine Studies, a post she held until her death. In 1985–88, she served as the head of Harvard's History Department and from 1989 until 1998 she headed the distinguished

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection Dumbarton Oaks, formally the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, is a historic estate in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It was the residence and garden of wealthy U.S. diplomat Robert Woods Bliss and his wife, Mi ...

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

— the first woman to do so. With her Laiou pioneered the study of Byzantine and wider medieval society, and especially the role of women. Her article on ''The role of women in Byzantine society'', published in the ''Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik'' in 1981, "opened a new field for scholars of Byzantium". Her works on ''Peasant Society in the Late Byzantine Empire'' (1977) and ''Mariage, Amour et Parenté à Byzance Aux XIe-XIIIe Siècles'' (1992) were among the first studies in their field. During her last years, she presided over the compilation of the three-volume ''Economic History of Byzantium'' (2002), a definitive work in this until then rather neglected field, followed up a few years later by ''The Byzantine Economy'' (2007), her last book. In her native Greece, she was honoured by being inducted into the Academy of Athens in 1998, only the second woman after the writer Galateia Saranti, and by being decorated with the Commander class of the Order of Honour. Laiou was also a corresponding member of the

Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres () is a French learned society devoted to history, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France. The academy's scope was the study of ancient inscriptions ( epig ...

, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, a foreign member of the

Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Serbica, sr-Cyr, Српска академија наука и уметности, САНУ, Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, SANU) is a national academy and the ...

, a member of the

Medieval Academy of America The Medieval Academy of America (MAA; spelled Mediaeval until c. 1980) is the largest organization in the United States promoting the field of medieval studies. It was founded in 1925 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The academy publishes ...

and of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

, and an honorary professor at

Nankai University Nankai University (NKU or Nankai; ) is a national public research university located in Tianjin, China. It is a prestigious Chinese state Class A Double First Class University approved by the central government of China, and a member of the fo ...

Political career

In the April 2000 elections, she was elected as a member of the

on the list of the

. In May 2000, she was also named as Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs charged with relations with the

Greek diaspora The Greek diaspora, also known as Omogenia ( el, Ομογένεια, Omogéneia), are the communities of Greeks living outside of Greece and Cyprus (excluding Northern Cyprus). Such places historically include Albania, North Macedonia, parts of ...

. Disappointed with the realities of the job, she resigned the post six months later to resume her academic activities, and resigned her Parliament seat as well in 2002.

Personal life

She was married to

Stavros Thomadakis Stavros Thomadakis is a Greek economist who served as chairman of the Hellenic Capital Market Commission, Professor of Finance at the University of Athens and chairman of the Public Interest Oversight Board. Academic career Thomadakis was born i ...

, a former chairman of the

Greek Capital Market Commission The Hellenic Capital Market Commission (HCMC; el, Επιτροπή Κεφαλαιαγοράς), established as a legal entity by Greek Law in 1991 and organized by the Greek Law 2324 of 1995, aims to "ensure the protection and the orderly and ef ...

, whom she later divorced. She is survived by a son, Vassilis Thomadakis. Diagnosed with

thyroid cancer Thyroid cancer is cancer that develops from the tissues of the thyroid gland. It is a disease in which cells grow abnormally and have the potential to spread to other parts of the body. Symptoms can include swelling or a lump in the neck. C ...

in September 2008, she died in Boston on 11 December 2008.

Major works

* * * * * * * * * * * *

References

External links

Full list of publications

Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences Memorial Minute on Angeliki E. Laiou

Memorial Celebration for Angelikí Laiou, Dumbarton Oaks Director 1989-1998
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laiou, Angeliki 1941 births 2008 deaths Greek Byzantinists American Byzantinists Scholars of Byzantine history Members of the Academy of Athens (modern) Foreign ministers of Greece Greek MPs 2000–2004 PASOK politicians Heads of universities and colleges in the United States Harvard University faculty Rutgers University faculty Brandeis University faculty Nankai University faculty University of Louisiana at Lafayette faculty Harvard University alumni Brandeis University alumni National and Kapodistrian University of Athens alumni Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of Academia Europaea Corresponding members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Corresponding Members of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Commanders of the Order of Honour (Greece) Women Byzantinists Women government ministers of Greece Women members of the Hellenic Parliament Writers from Athens Politicians from Athens Deaths from thyroid cancer Deaths from cancer in Massachusetts