Welcome!
The North American Society for Christian Arabic Studies or NASCAS is an informal association of researchers interested in Christian Arabic Studies. While most of us are from the United States and Canada, others are invited to participate. Some of us are professors; others are students; others are lay people. All are welcome!
Announcements
NASCAS - Biographies Needed
Readers are invited to contribute brief biographical accounts of themselves. Please let us know who you are and what you do. It would be especially useful if you would consider letting your colleagues know about your current projects. Please also consider sending a picture of yourself. Any snapshot will do: no need to worry about cropping or resizing the picture. Biographies and pictures should be sent to John Lamoreaux jclam@mail.smu.edu. [Posted: May 27 2009]
NASCAS - An Email Discussion Group for Christian Arabic
The North American Society for Christian Arabic Studies sponsors an e-mail discussion group, devoted to the academic study of Arabic-speaking Christian communities, their literature, and their history. The group is open to academics working in Christian Arabic and related fields (Syriac Studies, Patristics, Islamic Studies, Byzantine Studies, etc.), as well as all those interested in the history of Arab and Middle-Eastern Christianity. To join please contact the moderator Alexander Treiger (atreiger@dal.ca). It would be helpful if you could include a short statement about who you are and the topics in which you are interested. [Posted: May 25, 2009]
Christian Arabic Panel, AOS 2010 (Call for Papers)
There will be a Christian Arabic panel at the annual meeting of the American Oriental Society, 2010 (St Louis, Missouri, on March 12-15). Abstracts should be emailed to Alexander Treiger (ATreiger@DAL.CA) by Sept. 15. AOS's deadline for submissions is October 15th, 2009. Further details will be posted on the AOS website. All are welcome and encouraged to participate. [Posted: May 21, 2009]
Christian Arabic Panel, AOS 2009 (Conference Report)
The panel at the American Oriental Society meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was a huge success. Four papers were delivered and followed by a lively discussion.
- Samuel Noble (Yale University), Arab Christian Theologians against the Notion of God as Pure Being
- Krisztina Szilagyi (Princeton University), A Prophet like Jesus? Muslims and Christians Debate Muhammad's Death
- Paul E. Walker (University of Chicago), Al-Hakim and the Christians
- Alexander Treiger (Dalhousie University), Ethical Ascent and Divine Vision in Pseudo-Gregory of Nyssa's The Noetic Paradise (al-Firdaws al-`Aqli)
The panel was chaired by Professor Sidney H. Griffith (Catholic University of America), who also presented a Christian Arabic paper in another panel:
- Ibn al-Mahruma's Notes on Ibn Kammuna's Examination of the Three Religions: Jewish/Christian Controversy in the Islamic Milieu
Given the success of this first initiative and the positive feedback received from both colleagues and organizers, it has been decided that from now there will be Christian Arabic panels at the AOS every year. This is a great opportunity to put Christian Arabic studies on the map and to draw our colleagues' attention to this unduly neglected field. [Posted: May 21, 2009]