Religious Communities and Manuscript Cultures on the Medieval Silk Road
EurAsia Lecture Series, University of Vienna, Summer Semester 2026
Organized by: Claudia Rapp, Adrian C. Pirtea, and Florian Schwarz
Contact: adrian.pirtea@oeaw.ac.at
Link to Uni Wien course directory here.
13 March – 26 June, Fridays, 16:45-18:15
This semester’s EurAsia lecture series explores the intersection between religious history, interreligious encounters and manuscript cultures on the medieval Silk Road, using the concept of the "Silk Road" as a framework for studying networks of mobility, exchange, and interaction across pre-modern Eurasia. Focusing primarily on the period ca. 400-1200 CE, the course examines how major religious traditions (Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) spread beyond their regions of origin and interacted with one another. Particular attention is given to manuscripts as material witnesses to these processes, including the transmission, translation, and adaptation of religious texts, as well as the circulation of book cultures, book technologies, and scholarly languages such as Sanskrit, Sogdian, Middle Persian, Chinese, Tibetan, Old Uyghur, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Greek, Armenian, and others (knowledge of any of these languages is most welcome, but is not a prerequisite for attending the course). The series brings together leading international and local scholars specializing in a wide range of linguistic, literary, and religious traditions, offering a transregional and multilingual perspective on Eurasian religious history. Drawing on major manuscript discoveries from sites such as Dunhuang or Turfan, or long-established repositories of manuscripts such as St Catherine’s Monastery on Mt Sinai or the Matenadaran Institute for Manuscripts (Erevan, Armenia), the series provides a panoramic view of religious and cultural exchanges across Eurasia as reconstructed from manuscript evidence. Aiming at a close engagement with primary sources and at highlighting both the possibilities and the methodological challenges of studying religion and manuscripts along the Silk Road, the course is open to students of Byzantine Studies, History, Theology, Religious Studies and various disciplines within the fields of Oriental and East Asian Studies.
Venues:
Hörsaal 32, Hauptgebäude, 1. Stock, Stiege 9 on 13.3.2026
ZOOM Registration Link: https://univienna.zoom.us/meeting/register/pK43kvviTDamB4TD-keqkg
Friday, 13 March 2026 Nicholas Sims-Williams (SOAS, Emeritus)
Religious Literature in the Middle Iranian Languages of the Silk Road: 120 Years of Rediscovery
Friday, 20 March 2026 Floriana Marra (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin)
Iranian Manichaeism and Beyond: Between Canonicity and Local Beliefs in the Turfan Manuscripts
Friday, 27 March 2026 Khodadad Rezakhani (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
Religion, Text, and Anxiety: Writing Middle and New Persian in Zoroastrian and Islamic Contexts
Friday, 17 April 2026 Jens Wilkens (Niedersächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen)
Uyghur Manichaean and Buddhist Manuscript Culture in Turfan and Dunhuang (9th-14th Centuries)
Friday, 24 April 2026 Chiara Barbati (Università di Pisa)
People, Books and Religious Practices in Christian Medieval Turfan
Friday, 8 May 2026 Claudia Rapp (Universität Wien/ Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
Linguistic Diversity in the Library of St Catherine’s Monastery on Mt Sinai
Friday, 15 May 2026 Channa Li (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
From “Library Cave” to “House of Wisdom”: Reframing Dunhuang as a Translation and Scholastic Center in Global Perspective
Friday, 22 May 2026 Imre Galambos (Zhejiang University, Hangzhou)
The Materiality of Buddhist Manuscripts from Dunhuang
Friday, 29 May 2026 Zaroui Pogossian (Università di Firenze)
Armenian Manuscripts as Objects and Textual Witnesses of Religious, Linguistic and Material Entanglements
Friday, 5 June 2026 Gregor Schwarb (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
Manuscripts Across Boundaries: The Transformation of Jewish Book Culture in the Islamicate World, 800–1100
Friday, 12 June 2026 Adrian C. Pirtea (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
Tracing Itinerant Stories Through Manuscripts: Case Studies from Manichaeism, Eastern Christianity and the Qur’ān
Friday, 19 June 2026 Kirill Dmitriev (University of St Andrews)
From India to the Arab World and Back to India: Kitāb Bilawhar wa-Būḏāsaf and Its Transmission in Arabic Sources
Friday, 26 June 2026 Beatrice Gründler (Freie Universität Berlin)
Islamic Mirror and Interreligious Matrix: The Kalīla wa-Dimna
