Princeton to Offer Intensive Course on Christian Arabic in May 2015

From here.

 

Intensive Course on Christian Arabic
Princeton, New Jersey (USA) May 11-15, 2015

 

Thanks to a number of generous grants from the David A. Gardner ’69 Magic Project, over the last few years the Near Eastern Studies Department at Princeton University has organized a series of short, intensive courses for graduate students on a variety of subjects in the broad field of Islamic studies not normally covered in the Princeton curriculum. In each case, an internationally-recognized expert has been brought in to teach the course over a period of five weekdays.

 

This year, we plan to offer such a course on Christian Arabic.

 

The course will take place in May, starting on Monday May 11, and ending on Friday, May 15, 2015. The course is intended primarily for graduate students, both from Princeton and from other universities; applicants should have some knowledge of medieval Middle Eastern history.

 

The instructor will be Alexander Treiger of Dalhousie University, an expert on Christian Arabic literature, Sufism, and medieval Arabic philosophy. The course will focus on Christian literature in Arabic, with emphasis on the Arabic-speaking Chalcedonian Christians (called “Melkites” or “Rum”). The first part (Days 1-2) will offer a general survey of Middle Eastern Christianity, its ecclesiastical, ethnic, and linguistic divisions, and Christian Arabic Studies as a field of research, central to the study of the Christian Orient and highly pertinent to neighboring fields (Late Antiquity, Syriac Studies, Islamic Studies, Byzantine Studies, etc.). Particular attention will be given to the library of the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai – arguably the richest repository of Arab Christian manuscripts in the world, at least as far as Melkite material is concerned. A special session will therefore be devoted to dated manuscript colophons from the Sinai collection. The second part of the course (Days 3-5) will focus on select genres of Christian literature in Arabic: biblical and patristic translations, apologetic and polemical literature, and world chronicles. Select texts will be read in printed editions (whenever available) and in manuscripts. 

Application process and deadlines

 

Applications must be emailed to Judy Schedneck (jschedne@princeton.edu) at the Near Eastern Studies Department at Princeton University by February 19, 2015. The subject line of the email should read, “Application for Christian Arabic Workshop.” Applications should comprise the following:

 

Letter of application with statement of interest

CV

 

Names, positions, and email addresses of two referees

 

All items should be included in a single attachment, which may be a pdf.

 

Successful applicants will be notified in early-to-mid March 2015 and students accepted for the course but coming from outside of Princeton will receive partial scholarships to help defray travel and accommodation costs. The course itself is free.