Program in Medieval Studies
Thursday, February 26, 2026
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12:00 - 2:00 pmEnglish Building 109Faculty and graduate students are invited to join a discussion of work-in-progress by Craig Perry (Emory University): “Slavery, Abyssinian Diaspora, and the Civilian Elite in 15th-Century Mecca.” Lunch will be provided. Please contact Carol Symes if you would like to attend: symes@illinois.edu.
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3:00 - 5:00 pmRare Book and Manuscript Library, Main Library Room 346Prof. Elias Petrou will explore the evolution and transmission of the Greek book from East to West, beginning with an overview of the Byzantine educational system, the preservation and transmission of classical Greek knowledge through manuscripts, and how this inherited book culture was transformed through the new technology of print.
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Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt: A History -- Lecture by Prof. Craig Perry (Emory University)
5:00 pmLucy Ellis Lounge -- room 1080, Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics BuildingA new history of slavery and the slave trade in the medieval Middle East based on the Cairo Geniza archive, with attention to such crucial topics as the slave trade in state diplomacy, the entanglements of gender and household slavery, and the lives of the enslaved.
Thursday, April 2, 2026
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5:00 pmLevis Faculty Center, 208This talk introduces medieval Sicily in its Muslim period, focusing on how this history was experienced, archived, imagined, and remembered by its native poets and writers, as well as the travelers who visited the island, during its political and cultural apogee, and the later years under the domination of the Norman kings.
Friday, April 17, 2026
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3:00 pmRare Book and Manuscript LibraryA lecture by Prof. Warren Brown on an extraordinary manuscript fragment in out RBML: a leaf from an administrative book made at the Abbey of St. Martin, Tours (France) and dating to the 7th century which was later reinforced with a papyrus fragment written in Coptic Greek from Egypt.