the 13th Symposium Syriacum and the 11th Conference of Christian Arabic Studies
The 13th Symposium Syriacum and the 11th Conference of Christian Arabic Studies will take place in Paris at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO) on July July 6–11, 2020.
The congresses will host plenary lectures on transversal topics to Syriac and Christian Arabic studies (1h), a plenary session dedicated to religious and cultural heritage (1h), thematic workshops (1/2 day or full day), and individual papers (20min) in parallel sessions.
For the first time, the Congresses will host keynote lectures on topics that have undergone significant scientific developments over the past decade.
Each keynote lecture (1h, followed by 15min for questions) is meant to offer a historiographical overview of the recent and current trends of research in a particular field, and to put them into perspective in relation to Syriac and Christian Arabic studies and more broadly to other connected fields (for example, late antique, Byzantine, and Islamic studies). In order to strengthen the links between the two Congresses, each keynote lecture will be delivered “in tandem” by one scholar of Syriac studies and one scholar of Christian Arabic studies. This idea originates from the observation that Syriac and Arabic studies are too often considered as two separate fields, contrary to what history teaches us.
The program will include the following four plenary lectures:
- Syriac and Arabic Bible, Alison Salvesen (University of Oxford) & Ronny Vollandt (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
- Syriac and Arabic Hagiography: Trends of Research and Editorial Projects, Cornelia Horn (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg) & Sergey Minov (University of Oxford)
- Christian-Muslim Relations: Christian Apologetic Sources and Scholarly Trends, Barbara Roggema (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) & Mark Swanson (Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago)
- Historiography during Late Antiquity and the Islamic Period, Peter Van Nuffelen (Ghent University) & Antoine Borrut (University of Maryland)
Proposals for individual papers (unaffiliated with the thematic workshops) and posters are invited. Submissions from PhD students and early career researchers are strongly encouraged.