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Four - The Classical Near East

from I - Patterns, Paradigms, Scholarship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2024

By
Kevin T. van Bladel
Edited by
Elizabeth S. Bolman ,
Scott Fitzgerald Johnson  and
Jack Tannous
Elizabeth S. Bolman
Affiliation:
Case Western Reserve University, Ohio
Scott Fitzgerald Johnson
Affiliation:
University of Oklahoma
Jack Tannous
Affiliation:
Princeton University, New Jersey
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Summary

Terms like “Classical Arabic,” “Classical Armenian,” “Classical Syriac,” and “Classical Persian,” though not entirely unproblematic, arouse minimal controversy and are widely used. These Near Eastern languages have their classical traditions of learning, all arising in the same region, all interacting with one another. Let us therefore envision a “Classical Near East” to foster modern scholarly exchange between specialists in pre-modern Near Eastern history and philology. This essay explores the prospects of a broader arena of ancient and medieval research for specialists in the premodern Near East that transcends the specializing delimitation of modern identities and religions

Keywords

Classical Near EastClassicsLate AntiquityByzantiumancient IranIslamic studies
Type
Chapter
Information
Worlds of Byzantium
Religion, Culture, and Empire in the Medieval Near East
 , pp. 78 - 97
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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