The papers of this volume originated in a workshop held at the University of Notre Dame in February 2004 to discuss the variety of ways one might read Michael Psellos (1018-after 1081?). One of most original figures of Byzantine intellectual history, Psellos was a polymath whose range extended from rhetoric and philosophy to law and medicine. While his history of his own times, the Chronographia, is one of the best known works of Byzantine literature, very little else of his large body of work has been translated. It is the intention of this volume to encourage a wider awareness of Psellos’ many interests by offering readings of his original texts from a variety of scholarly perspectives.