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What's Going On at MEMS?

Dear Friends,

MEMS continues to sponsor the Premodern Colloquium (meets Sunday afternoons once a month) as well as occasional MEMS Lectures.

We hope you will join us, and watch the website calendar of events for upcoming lectures and other activities of interest!

CMENAS Colloquium Series. The Reshaping of Persian after the Seventh-Century Arabian Conquest and Colonization

Kevin van Bladel, Professor of Near Eastern Languages & Civilization, Yale University
Monday, October 21, 2019
2:00-3:30 PM
Room 555 Weiser Hall Map
The 2019 CMENAS Colloquium Series theme is "Migration in the Islamicate World."

This presentation discusses the reshaping of the Persian language in the seventh and eighth centuries, conditioned by the settlement patterns of the coalition of conquering Colonists (muhājirūn) from Arabia. Breakthroughs in contact linguistics combined with traditional historical linguistics and philology provide new insights into the demographic history of premodern populations and shed light on how the Persian language still used today first emerged. In this analysis, modern narratives of Persian ethnic or national continuity with the ancient past give way to a history of discontinuity and colonial rupture.

About the Speaker:
Kevin van Bladel is Professor of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations at Yale University. He is the author of The Arabic Hermes (2009) and From Sasanian Mandaeans to Sabians of the Marshes (2017), as well as numerous articles on the languages and learned traditions of the classical Near East.

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If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation to attend this event, please reach out to us at least 2 weeks in advance of this event. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange. Contact: jessmhil@umich.edu
Building: Weiser Hall
Event Type: Lecture / Discussion
Tags: Lecture, Middle East Studies
Source: Happening @ Michigan from Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, Department of Middle East Studies, International Institute, Global Islamic Studies Center, Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS)