Alexander Riehle

Alexander Riehle is an Associate Professor of Classics at Harvard University, specializing in Byzantine literature with a focus on epistolography, rhetoric, performance, and gender. He serves on the Steering Committee of Harvard’s Ph.D. Program in Byzantine Studies and is the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Classics.

• Education: MA (2007) and PhD (2011) in Byzantine Studies from the University of Munich.
• Prior Roles: Lecturer in Byzantine Philology at the University of Vienna, Junior Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, and Visiting Research Fellow at Princeton’s Center for Hellenic Studies.

Riehle’s research explores how textual practices—authorship, performance, publication, and reading—interact with social institutions and dynamics. His work spans gender in Byzantine literature, patronage networks, book culture, and late Byzantine intellectual history. He has edited major publications including:

• A Companion to Byzantine Epistolography (2020),
• Epistolary Poetry in Byzantium and Beyond (2021),
• Anekdota Byzantina (2023), and
• Die Briefsammlungen des Nikephoros Chumnos (2023).

His current project, Women’s Writing in Byzantium, aims to redefine the canon of medieval literature by examining gender and authorship in pre-modern societies. The articles in his bibliography highlight interdisciplinary approaches, cross-cultural comparisons, and textual analysis of late Byzantine correspondence.

As an educator, Riehle teaches Medieval Greek language and literature, Greek paleography, and textual criticism, while advising doctoral and senior theses. He is also an editor for the Edinburgh Byzantine Studies monograph series and has held visiting appointments at institutions like Central European University and the University of Patras.