Syriac Encounters: Papers from the Sixth North American Syriac Symposium, Duke University, 26-29 June 2011

The Sixth North American Syriac Symposium brought together scholars from

across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and India. Syriac

Encounters offers twenty-four papers that were originally delivered at

the Symposium, and represents a cross-section of both the Symposium and

the current state of Syriac studies more broadly. Although most of the

papers in the volume focus on the late antique heyday of Syriac

Christianity, several papers contribute to the study of other, related

fields, including Islamic studies and Middle Eastern anthropology. The

blossoming of Syriac studies beyond church history and Semitic philology

can be attributed to a wider recognition of the Syriac language and

culture as a bridge linking (and fostering encounters between) Rome

and Persia, Byzantium and Baghdad, and Christianity and Islam.