Sebastian Brock: The Case of Syriac

Charting the Hellenization of a Literary Culture: The Case of Syriac

Monday, March 24, 2014 - 5:30pm to 7:00pm

, 

CEU Nador u. 13 Room: 002

The extent to which Syriac literary culture had been hellenized over the course of the fourth to seventh century AD is clearly illustrated by the change in epistolary greeting formulae, moving from the Semitic ‘peace’ (shlam) to the Greek ‘to rejoice’ (chairein). After some preliminary remarks on the term hellenization in the context of Syriac literary culture, some different ways of charting its advance are indicated by examples provided by sondages in four different areas: 1. The shift in attitudes towards translating Greek into Syriac over the course of time, with the move from reader-oriented to text-oriented translations. This is most clearly illustrated by the successive translations/revisions of the Gospels, where an important role was also played by the christological controversies. The same shift, with the same turning point of c. AD 500, is equally observable with translations of patristic and secular literature (notably Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Severus and Ps. Dionysius for the former; Porphyry’s Eisagoge and Aristotle’s Categories for the latter). The altered situation at the time of the ‘Translation Movement’ (8th/9th cent.), however, required a return to reader-oriented translations; the same applies to translations of Byzantine hymnography at much the same time; 2. The growing number of Greek loanwords taken over into Syriac, and 3. the growing number of adjectival forms in use. The dramatic growth in both these cases can be charted diachronically, thanks to the existence of sufficient dated or datable texts; 4. The adoption of Greek literary genres and imagery. An excellent example of the former is the adoption of the Preface, and of the latter, athletic and nautical imagery.

Dr. Sebastian Brock was formerly Reader in Syriac Studies at the University of Oxford and is a Professorial Fellow of Wolfson College. His interest extends to almost all fields connected to Syriac studies, including linguistics, manuscript studies, translation theory, historiography, history of philosophy, spirituality, theology. Among Syriacists he is called Malfono d-malfone, that is, the teacher of all the teachers as there are virtually no Syriaci scholars who would not be his pupils in one way or another.

The Shaping of Early Ottoman Edirne

CEU Lecture: Amy Singer: The Shaping of Early Ottoman Edirne

Date:  May 24, 2013 - 15:00 - 16:45 

Building: 

 Nador u. 11 

Room: 

 Hanak (201)

The city of Edirne was the official Ottoman capital city for at least half a century after the defeat 
of Sultan Bayezid I by Timur in 1402 and before the conquest of Constantinople (by his great grandson 
Mehmed II) in 1453. Yet until quite recently, the city has received limited attention from historians, 
limited to a relatively small number of topics. This talk will explore Ottoman Edirne with two goals 
in mind. 
First, to consider the question of Edirne's historiographical status, particularly in contrast to its importance 
as a former Ottoman capital. Why have historians focused more on Bursa, Konya or Amasya, relatively 
speaking (to say nothing of Istanbul), and not deemed Edirne as attractive a subject of study? 
Second, Edirne receives closer examination, as a first step to recovering and perhaps reconceiving
 the city in its early Ottoman period. In part, this study is a pilot project in the use of Historical Geographic
Information Systems (HGIS) for Ottoman history. It asks how Ottoman history can benefit from a 
contemporary data interpretation system to explore sources in new and fruitful ways?

Amy Singer (Ph.D. Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, 1989) was born in Washington, D.C. 
and teaches Ottoman and Turkish History in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History 
at Tel Aviv University. Her research began with an in-depth study of the relations between Ottoman 
officials and Palestinian peasants, in an effort to move Ottoman agrarian history beyond cataloguing
 the demography and agricultural production of villages (Palestinian peasants and Ottoman officials, 
1994). From the documentary materials of this study there emerged another story, that of an enormous
 endowed foundation (waqf) for a public kitchen (imaret) established by the wife of Sultan Süleyman I 
in Jerusalem in the mid-sixteenth century (Constructing Ottoman Beneficence, 2002). 
The study of one endowment provoked a more general interrogation of Islamic charity (Charity in
 Islamic Societies, 2008). At present, my projects focus on the city of Edirne/Adrianople and on
 public kitchens across the Ottoman Empire. In both of these, I am integrating Geographic Information
 Systems (GIS) as a tool for historical research. I spend part of each year doing research in libraries 
and archives in Turkey, and my books have appeared there in Turkish translations.

Relocating the Qur’an in Abrahamitic Religions

The CEU Center for Religious Studies in cooperation with the Rector ’s Office invite you to join us for The fourth lecture in the Rector's Lecture Series: Comparative Approaches to Abrahamic Religions

A lecture by Angelika Neuwirth (Freie Universität Berlin)

Relocating the Qur’an in “Abrahamitic Religions”: Straight trajectories or dead alleys?

Date: 

 May 14, 2013 - 17:30 - 19:00

Building: 

 Nador u. 13

Room: 

 Room 001

Abstract: 

The new opening of formerly Early Islamic Studies to a more comparative approach encompassing the two neighboring religions certainly marks an immense progress in academic self-reflection. Yet the concept, however inclusive, again risks to exclude important elements of the nascent Islamic Culture. The lecture advocates a still more extended concept: Late Antique Studies. ‘Late Antiquity’ should not be regarded primarily as an epoch but rather as a broad field of discourse, a Denkraum, where texts and notions originating from antiquity (Hellenic and Ancient Oriental) were re-read under new – religious or at least individualist – perspectives. Such new readings in Arabic language do not exclusively originate with the Qur’an but have not a few precedents in pre-Islamic poetry. The construct of a “Denkraum Late Antiquity” thus does no longer view Jahiliyya, pre-Islamic culture, as the other of Islam, but rather as the Arabian province of a vast space of debate involving diverse cultures, a space out of which the Qur’an and considerable other early Arabic literature emerged. A number of Qur'anic texts will be discussed as evidence. 

Professor Angelika Neuwirth was educated in Classics and Oriental Studies at German and international universities (Italy, Iran, Israel). She taught at the Universities of Bamberg, Munich, Amman, Cairo and since 1991 holds the chair of Arabic Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. From 1994-1999 she served as the director of the Orient Institut der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft in Beirut and Istanbul. Her major fields of research are classical and modern Arabic literature, as well as Late Antiquity Studies. In several recent publications Neuwirth has try to vindicate the Qur’an as a Late Antique text, which is not “influenced by” but creatively in conversation with pagan, Christian and Jewish traditions, providing new answers to universally debated questions of its time. Neuwirth whose monograph “Scripture and the Making of a Community – Literary Readings of the Qur’an” is presently in print, has been acknowledged for her novel approach to interreligious studies with several honorary doctorates and awards.

Forrás: http://www.ceu.hu/node/35031

A non-colonial Orientalism? Czech travelers to the Orient

A non-colonial Orientalism? Czech travelers to the Orient, 1890-1938  

Sarah Lemmen, University of Vienna

Thursday, 11 October, 17:30 Central European University, Nádor u. 13. Room 001

By the end of the 19th century, travels to the Orient had become popular among the European middle class, including an ever growing participation of Czech travelers. It is during this time of both extensive globalization and intensive nationalization processes, that long-distance travelling may be considered a place of reflection on questions of national identity in a global context.
Sarah Lemmen is Research Associate at the Department of East European History at the University of Vienna. After her studies of history and Czech cultural studies at the universities of Leipzig and Prague, she worked at various research institutions and foundations in Berlin, Chemnitz, Leipzig, and Vienna, focusing on East Central European history, transnational history, the history of travel and tourism, and on Gender history. Currently, she works on her PhD project on “Representations of the non-European world in the Czech society, 1890-1938”.

Taking this as a starting point, the lecture will focus on Czech travelers to Africa and Asia from the end of the 19th century to the final years of the Interwar period, whereby discussing the traveler’s reflections on the European Self and the Oriental Other, on colonialism and civilization, and on the role of the Czech nation in a global context. Without any direct colonial involvement of its own, the global position of the Czech society was by no means certain and had to be negotiated both in terms of a “small nation” throughout the Habsburg Monarchy and, consecutively, as the national majority in the newly founded Czechoslovak republic.




Forrás: CEU

Wissenschaft between East and West

Wissenschaft between East and West:

The Hungarian Connection in Modern Jewish Scholarship

Budapest, October 14-16, 2012

International Conference organized by
The Center of Jewish Studies, Institute for Minority Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest; Jewish Studies at Central European University, Budapest;
Martin Buber Chair in Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main;
Centre for German-Jewish Studies, University of Sussex;
Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden, Hamburg.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Venue: Central European University, Auditorium, Nádor utca 9

17:30-18:00 Welcoming Remarks

18:00-19:00  Keynote lecture
Chair: Nadia Al-Bagdadi (Budapest)

Géza Komoróczy (Budapest): Oriental Studies in Hungary and at the Rabbinical Seminary

19:00 Reception


Monday, October 15, 2012

Venue: Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Kisterem (2nd floor), Széchenyi István tér 9

9:00-10:15 Löw and the First Generation of Hungarian Jewish Wissenschaft
Chair: Andreas Brämer (Hamburg)

Michael K. Silber (Jerusalem): The Beginnings of Hungarian Jewish Historiography
Michael L. Miller (Budapest): The Moravian Origins of Hungarian Wissenschaft des Judentums

10:15-10:45 Coffee break

10:45-12:30 Ignác Goldziher: Lonely Man of Faiths
Chair: Shaul Shaked (Jerusalem)

Ismar Schorsch (New York): Value Free Scholarship in an Age of Academic Bigotry: the Relationship between Heinrich Fleischer and Ignaz Goldziher
Ottfried Fraisse (Frankfurt): From Geiger to Goldziher: Historical Method and its Impact on Shaping Islam
Tamás Turan (Budapest): Goldziher as Scholar and Jew

12:30-14:00 Lunch Break

14:00-15:15 Venues of Wissenschaft: Yeshiva, Seminary and University
Chair: György Haraszti (Budapest)

Carsten L. Wilke (Budapest): Students' Itineraries between Yeshiva and University
Mirjam Thulin (Mainz): Connecting Centers of Wissenschaft des Judentums: David Kaufmann in Budapest, 1877-1899

15:15-15:45 Coffee Break

15:45-17:30 The Politics of Wissenschaft
Chair: Victor Karády (Budapest)

Gábor Schweitzer (Budapest): Scholarship and Patriotism: Research on the History of Hungarian Jewry and the Rabbinical Seminary of Budapest
Miklós Konrád (Budapest): Hungarian Politics and the Construction of Denationalized Judaism
András Kovács (Budapest): An Unhappy Ending: Jewish Educational Institutions under Communist Rule

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Venue: Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Kisterem (2nd floor), Széchenyi István tér 9

9:00-10:45 Jewish Scholarship, Hungarian Audience
Chair: Kata Zsófia Vincze (Budapest)

Giuseppe Veltri (Halle): Ludwig Blau's Concept of Jewish Monotheism as Cultural Deviance
Vilmos Voigt (Budapest): A Suspension Bridge of Confidence: Folklore Studies in Jewish-Hungarian Scholarship
Zsuzsanna Toronyi (Budapest): Fixtures at an Exhibition: Making Judaica Visible at the Turn of the Century

10:45-11:15 Coffee break

11:15-13:00 Religious Cultures
Chair: Balázs Déri (Budapest)

Christian Wiese (Frankfurt a.M./Sussex): Hungarian-Jewish Scholars on Christianity
Shaul Shaked (Jerusalem): From Bacher to Telegdi: the Lure of Iran in Jewish Studies
Paul B. Fenton (Paris): Georges Vajda and his Method of the Study of Kabbalah

13:00-14:30 Lunch break

16:00-17:45 The Study of Ancient Judaism by Hungarian Emigrant Scolars
Chair: Gábor Buzási (Budapest)

Günter Stemberger (Vienna): Meir Friedmann – A Pioneering Scholar of Midrash
Catherine Hézser (London): Samuel Krauss' Contribution to the Study of Judaism in Antiquity
Isaiah Gafni (Jerusalem): Adolf Büchler and the Historiography of Talmudic Judaism

Forrás: CEU
A konferencia plakátja