090100 VO Lecture Series: Religious Communities and Manuscript Cultures on the Medieval Silk Road (2026S)

This course 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 traditionsBuddhism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islamspread 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).
Organized as a Ringvorlesung in English within the framework of the Cluster of Excellence EurAsian Transformations, the course will bring 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 course provides a panoramic view of religious and cultural exchanges across Eurasia as reconstructed from manuscript evidence. Another focus of the course will be on medieval literary works that travelled widely across medieval Eurasia, such as the Legend of the Buddha (Bilawhar wa-Budasaf) or Kalila wa-Dimna. 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.

List of speakers: Nicholas Sims-Williams (13 March), Floriana Marra (20 March), Khodadad Rezakhani (27 March), Jens Wilkens (17 April), Chiara Barbati (24 April), Claudia Rapp (8 May), Channa Li (15 May), Imre Galambos (22 May), Zara Pogossian (29 May), Gregor Schwarb (5 June), Adrian Pirtea (12 June), Kirill Dmitriev (19 June), Beatrice Gründler (26 June).