SYRIAC LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

The course provides the students with the elements of a little-known language of the Middle East, which, however, has a long historical tradition and is still lively although scattered in a diaspora all over Europe, North America, and Australia. The acquisition of basic linguistic skills will be the core of the course, and will be accompanied by an introduction to the history and to the cultural variety of the Syriac world, which mostly expressed itself in a rich Christian culture. Any overview of ancient Christanity can hardly be deemed complete without an accurate consideration of Syriac Christianity, which thrived during the 1st millennium CE and beyond under Roman, Persian, and Abbasid rule. The Syriac language, a variety of Aramaic, spread out from its homeland, Mesopotamia, all over Central Asia up to China, where Syriac Christians settled many centuries before Jesuit missionaries. It is through the intermediary of Syriac translations that many ancient Greek philosophical texts passed to Arabic, thus fostering the great season of Medieval Arabic philosophy. Indeed, Baghdad was the stage of lively exchanges between Christian thinkers of Syriac formation and Muslim intellectuals.
At the same time, the study of the Syriac world will introduce the students to the sources and the traditions of a fully Asian Christianity, thereby opening up a different perspective on the history of Christianity. The exposition to the complexity of the interactions that bound Syriac Christians with the many religions (especialy Islam) they encountered along their millennial history, will prompt a critical and nuanced attitude towards the idea itself of what Christianity is.

After the course, the students will have a good knowledge of the morphology and syntax of the Syriac language. They will be able to recognize the specific features of the major traditions of Syriac Christianity; to outline its historical and geographical development; to read and interpret some of its crucial texts; to appraise its interactions with other religious traditions and to appreciate its historical and cultural relevance as a vital component of the complex religious world of the Middle East.

No preliminary knowledge is needed.

The course will mainly provide an introduction to the basics of Syriac morphology and syntax. The linguistic learning will be accompanied by some specific insights on Syriac religious literature, in particular on symbolical and ascetic-mystical topics.

Suggested grammar:
James F. Coakley, ed. Robinson’s Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Compulsory reading:
Sebastian Brock, La spiritualità nella tradizione siriaca, Roma, Lipa, 2006.

For those who can read French, the following introduction is highly recommended:
Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet, Muriel Debié, Le monde syriaque. Sur les routes d'un christianisme ignoré, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2017.
In English:
Ian Gilman, Hans-Joachim Klimkeit (eds.), Christians in Asia Before 1500, Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press, 1999, p. 21-74; 109-152; 205-282.

The students' learning and understanding will be assessed through an oral exam, consisting in the translation of a short passage in Syriac among those that have been studied in class and in the testing of the student's knowledge of the history of Syriac literature. Average duration of the exam: 25 minutes. The translation from Syriac has particular weight in the evaluation.

We will alternate lecture-style instruction and seminars entailing the discussion of texts, audio-visual materials, and online resources.

Italian

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