Asterisms: The Relations among their Verbal, Numerical, and Visual Representations across Cultures in Research and Public Outreach, An International Conference, Princeton, Institute for Advanced Study, 14-15 February 2024, Sponsor: Sabine Schmidtke (IAS), Convenor: Sonja Brentjes (MPIWG, IAS), Funding for this event provided by the Otto Neugebauer Fund

Within the format of the Mainz History Talks, a series of three workshops organized by the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) and the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (JGU) with the overarching title “Mainz-Princeton Symposia: Reflections on Byzantium from a Global Perspective” will take place from 2022 to 2025. These Mainz-Princeton Symposia will seek to situate conceptions of Byzantium within a “global” context by examining the relevance of Byzantium, with each of the three gatherings dedicated to a specific regional or chronological milieu and reflecting upon Byzantium from a global perspective. As a culture and polity geographically spanning three continents and chronologically bridging Antiquity and the Renaissance, Byzantium meant entirely different things to its neighbors at different points in its history. Moreover, beyond examining actual connections between Byzantium and other cultures, leading experts of various disciplines participating in these conversations will be called upon to reflect upon Byzantium and to describe what is Byzantium’s relevance in a general sense as a foil or a point of reference for them, for their approach to global history and their fields more broadly. The second of these three workshops, which will take place from June 28th to 30th, 2023 on the grounds of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, will focus on Byzantium and the Islamicate world. The invitees represent a broad swathe of Byzantine Studies as well as fields touching upon the history of the premodern Middle East. Among other questions, the workshop participants will examine to what extent Byzantium can be understood as part of a broader premodern history of the Islamicate world, even though, despite the empire’s manifold political and cultural connections with that region, it is more often associated with western Latin Europe as well as the Slavic world. Other queries which the gathering’s attendees will attempt answer is what extent does Byzantium figure within conceptions of the premodern Islamicate world, in the sense of a shared cultural space, and what form future cooperation between Byzantine Studies and fields covering the premodern Middle East should take and to what degree disciplinary boundaries are here justified or rather a hindrance.

The colophon, the ultimate or “crowing touch” paragraphs of a manuscript, provides readers with a the historical context in which the scribe produced the manuscript. At its basic essence, the colophon gives us the “metadata” of the manuscript: who was the scribe? When and where was the manuscript pro-duced? For whom was it produced and who paid for it? But colophons are far more rich. They are literary works on their own right, having a style and rhetoric independent of the main literary text of the manuscript. In addition, colophons provide historical facts otherwise lost to histories: wars, earthquakes, religious events, etc. The aim of this workshop is to bring together scholars from various disciplines to study colophons in Middle Easter manuscripts in various languages, including, but not limited to, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian,* Hebrew, Persian, and Syriac. Scholars interested in participating may send via email a proposal between 750 and 1,000 words. Pro-posals are to focus on the colophon (i.e. not a study of the main literary text of the manuscript). Com-parative analyses across traditions is encouraged but not required. Submission deadline is January 15, 2020. Submissions are to be sent via email directly to George A. Kiraz at gkiraz@ias.edu. Scholars are expected to fund their travel to/from and accommodation in Princeton. The Institute will provide meals and a conference celebratory dinner. Speakers will be invited to contribute to a collected volume on an agreed-upon theme.

A one-day symposium for Etan Kohlberg, eminent scholar and teacher, great friend and colleague, revolving around the topic of “Medieval (and Premodern) Muslim Scholars at Work”, evoking the title of Etan’s seminal monograph of 1992 on Ibn Ṭāwūs.

The inaugural symposium of the Persian Manuscripts Association, celebrates the 600th anniversary of the first manuscript produced at the royal library-atelier of the Timurid Prince Baysunghur (1399-1433) in Herat. Prince Baysunghur, Before and After: Timurid Manuscripts in Context, is a two-day international symposium, held on 5-6 November 2021, and hosted by the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Baysunghur’s patronage of manuscript production is significant for exhibiting a high artistic refinement in the arts of the book, but the patron was also actively involved in the scholarly aspect of the works to be reproduced. He commanded editions and the preservation of texts in a variety of fields, notably history, ethics and literature. This symposium brings together scholars and international experts in a number of disciplines to explore the connoisseurship and patronage undertaken by the prince, the aesthetic of his atelier’s output, their antecedents in the Jalayirid period, and the production of literary editions in his library.

The object of this lecture series is to bring together scholars and librarians engaged with collections of correspondences and/or include related projects that use appropriate digital tools to map and analyze such corpora. It is hosted by Sabine Schmidtke (NES@IAS) and María Mercedes Tuya (Digital Scholarship@IAS).

Most scholars who employ manuscripts in their research tend to focus on the literary content itself. But what about the role of the scribe who typically remains at the periphery of research? How can we, in the words of the NT textual critic James Royse, “virtually look over the scribe’s shoulder” to understand the process by which our manuscripts were produced. The aim of this workshop is to bring together scholars from various disciplines to study the individuals who produced our manuscripts and how they shaped the transmission of literary texts they copied. This workshop will focus on Middle Eastern manuscripts written in Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Armenian, Coptic and other languages.

The Bible in Middle Eastern Manuscript Traditions (2026 MEMaT Workshop) 22-24 April 2026, Rome Venue: University of Rome Tor Vergata Convenors: George A. Kiraz and Sabine Schmidtke (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton NJ), Valentina Sagaria Rossi (University of Rome Tor Vergata) Call for Proposals: This interdisciplinary workshop aims to explore the rich and complex role of biblical manuscripts within Middle Eastern cultures, past and present. The event seeks to highlight the diverse scribal practices, transmission histories, and cultural interpretations that have shaped the reception of the Bible across the region. Topics may include manuscript production in (Judeo-)Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopic, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, and (Judeo-)Persian, including multilingual copies of (parts of) the Bible and polyglots; the movement of texts across linguistic and religious communities; the use of biblical material in liturgy, theology, and polemic; and the significance of material culture—such as script, text arrangement and chapter divisions, illumination, codicology, and binding—in expressing local and regional identities. The workshop also invites reflections on the afterlives of biblical manuscripts in modern collections, digital preservation, and cultural heritage debates. Titles and abstracts (750–1000 words) should be submitted by January 1, 2026 to Uta Nitschke-Joseph at nitschke@ias.edu. Scholars are expected to fund their travel to/ from and accommodation in Rome. Lunches will be provided. Speakers will be invited to contribute to a proceedings volume. All contributions will undergo a double-blind peer-review process. For Middle Eastern Manuscript Traditions (MEMaT), a multidisciplinary project which aims at studying various aspects of manuscript production, utilization, and transmission history, see https://www.ias.edu/hs/islamic-world/memat

“The Visual Scribe: Tables and Diagrams in Middle Eastern Manuscripts Workshop,” Institute for the History of Knowledge in the Ancient World at Freie Universität Berlin, April 10-11, 2025, convenors: Sonja Brentjes, George A. Kiraz, Mathieu Ossendrijver, Sabine Schmidtke

Yemen’s war and humanitarian crisis are in the news, but very little is known about the rich cultural heritage of the southwestern corner of Arabia throughout history. Also largely unknown are Yemen’s geographic and economic diversity or their impact on recent events. Yemen’s diversity owes much to conquest, trade, and migration between Yemen and Christian Ethiopia, Sassanian and Islamic Iran, Fatimid and Ayyubid Egypt, Ottoman Turkey, the African coast and Southeast Asia. In this panel experts on different periods of Yemeni history and its diverse contemporary contexts probe beyond current politics to share their insights and discuss potentials for future scholarly research on Yemen.

YEMEN UNDER THE RULE OF IMAM YAHYA (1904-1948): A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE SOURCES WORKSHOP CONVENORS: Sabine Schmidtke (IAS Princeton), Marieke Brandt (ÖAW/AAS), Valentina Sagaria Rossi (IAS Princeton), Jan Thiele (CSIC Madrid) A workshop supported by the Gerard B. Lambert Foundation