Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures at Queen’s: “Christian Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscript culture”

Please join us for an online talk hosted by the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures at The Queen’s College in the University of Oxford. Our centre promotes inter-disciplinary discussion among scholars and students interested in manuscripts and material culture in the premodern world. So your participation is most welcome regardless of your field of specialty. 

We are meeting on Zoom on Wednesday 17th November at 5,00-7,00pm (UK time). 

Alessandro Bausi (African/Ethiopian Studies, University of Hamburg) 

“Christian Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscript culture” 

This paper aims at providing non-Ethiopianists with an overview of the development of textual studies in Christian Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscript culture thanks to some new research trends from the last few years. These trends—based on the new manuscript evidence that has been collected and analysed by digitisation and cataloguing projects over several decades—have now started impacting mainstream studies, particularly on late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and have contributed to reconfiguring the civilisation of Aksum and of its later mediaeval incarnations within a much wider context. Ultimately, these findings provide a deeper understanding of the dynamics of preservation, recovery, and loss in the later Ethiopian and Eritrean tradition. 

Here is a link to the sign-up form. Attendance is free of charge but sign-up is mandatory. We will send a Zoom link to all participants on Monday next week (15th November). If you cannot access Google Forms please sign up by sending an email to gabriele.rota@queens.ox.ac.uk.