Events
2025
NES seminars meeting from 12:15 to 1:45 pm, Rubinstein 1 room.
September 4-5, Maktabat al-Khānjī Archive Workshop hosted at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. Details to be provided at a later time. This event is funded by the IAS Jonathan M. Nelson Center for Collaborative Research. Program.
October 22: Near Eastern Studies Seminar, Reasons to Dissect Reason: Historians and the Bizarreness of an Abstract Object We Cannot Do Without, Henri Lauziere, (IAS School of Historical Studies and Northwestern University).
October 27: PU Committee for the Study of Late Antiquity Lecture, Syriac Philosophy: Between the Greeks and the Arabs, Yury Arzhanov (IAS School of Historical Studies and University of Salzburg). Register.
November 5: Near Eastern Studies Seminar, The "Land In Between": Shaping an Islamic Legal Order in the Saharan West, 1600–1850, Ismail Warscheid, (IAS School of Historical Studies and CNRS).
December 3: Near Eastern Studies Seminar, Toward a Glossary of Syriac Philosophical Terminology: Defining Scope and Addressing Challenges, Yury Arzhanov, (IAS School of Historical Studies and University of Salzburg).
December 10-12: S.T. Lee Conference and Lecture, One Century of “Oriental” and Semitic Studies, 1830 through 1933: Scholarly Networks, Trajectories and Concepts. Conveners: Dorothea Weltecke (Humboldt University, Berlin) and Sabine Schmidtke (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton NJ). Event details.
2026
NES seminars meeting from 12:15 to 1:45 pm, Rubinstein 1 room.
January 21: Near Eastern Studies Seminar, Book Talk: Islamic Aid and Gulf States in Contemporary Crises, Altea Pericoli, (Princeton University). The central argument of this book is based on the existence of non-universal but coexisting values that inspire humanitarianism, and the confrontation between values and practices in humanitarian aid implementation. The Gulf States, like any other donor states, are guided by the structural norms of the aid system and the politicisation of aid itself. However, originating from a different political and cultural background, including different Islamic understandings, they bring with them distinct practices and approaches within the system that can no longer be ignored. Altea Pericoli brings together an analysis of Islamic norms and foreign aid interventions by the Gulf States through the study of various levels of aid implementation and policies, and examines their behaviour in a specific case study: the Syrian humanitarian response from 2015 to 2023. The analysis explores the top-down decision-making process of aid allocation by Qatar, the UAE and non-state regional actors, as well as the humanitarian negotiations and aid distribution conducted by Gulf charities and local organisations in Syria after 2015.
January 28: Near Eastern Studies Seminar, Doing Things with Merit ('Thawāb') in the 11th-12th century CE, Marion Katz, (IAS School of Historical Studies and New York University).
February 4: Near Eastern Studies Seminar, Topic to be announced, Amy Singer, (IAS School of Historical Studies and Brandeis University).
February 11: Near Eastern Studies Seminar, A Berber Sufi Scholar who Spoke Truth to Power in Arabic: The Remarkable Life of al-Hasan al-Yusi, Justin Stearns, (IAS School of Historical Studies and New York University Abu Dhabi).
February 18: Near Eastern Studies Seminar, Syriac–Armenian Encounter over Monastic Authority in Late Ottoman Jerusalem, George A. Kiraz, (IAS School of Historical Studies).
on 18 February 2026
March 4: Near Eastern Studies Seminar, Topic to be announced, Ismail Warscheid, (IAS School of Historical Studies and CNRS).
March 11: Near Eastern Studies Seminar, The Cairo Geniza and the India trade, Amir Ashur, (IAS School of Historical Studies and University of Haifa).
April 22-24: Near Eastern Studies Workshop: The Bible in Middle Eastern Manuscript Traditions. 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. Conveners: George A. Kiraz (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton), Sabine Schmidtke (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton) and Valentina Sagaria Rossi (University of Rome Tor Vergata). Proposal submission deadline: January 1, 2026. 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.