S. T. Lee Public Lecture
Dorothea Weltecke
Thursday, December 11, 2025
5:00 p.m.
West Building | Lecture Hall
 

“The characteristic of the Syrians is a certain mediocracy”: 
Western pioneers of Syriac studies and their contempt

European Aramaicists regarded the second half of the nineteenth century, up to about the First World War, as a particularly fruitful period—indeed, the beginning of scientific Syriac studies. They themselves attributed this explosion of research to the growth of manuscript collections, particularly in London and Paris, but also in Berlin and Cambridge. Curiously, the same pioneers in London, Paris, and Berlin often showed little respect for the cultures of Christians of the Syriac tradition and their written heritage. Scholars such as William Wright, Ruben Duval, and Theodor Nöldeke made no secret of their contempt for their subject. The Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Barsaum, a contemporary witness and himself an eminent Syriac scholar, protested in vain. This lecture will present the current state of the debate about these pioneers of modern Syriac studies, and trace the attitudes of some of them in the context of the changing international landscape and European academia.

Since 2021, Dorothea Weltecke has been Chair for Medieval History at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Before this, she held chairs for the History of Religions at the Universität Konstanz (2007–2017) and for Medieval History at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt (2017–2021). Dorothea Weltecke teaches and studies medieval history and particular focuses on the history of religions, religious minorities, social history, and the history of historiography. Since her Ph.D. thesis on the Syriac orthodox Patriarch Michael the Great (1126–1199), research on Syriac Christianity has been of special interest to her.

This public lecture is made possible by the Dr. S. T. Lee Fund for Historical Studies.

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