“Turning the Page: Forgotten Texts, Rescue Apologetics, and Manuscript Collections”

About the Lecture:

Among Louis Cheikho’s personal papers housed at the Jesuit archives in Beirut can be found a ticket requesting a manuscript from the British Library. This manuscript was initially acquired by Claudius Rich, an East India Company British resident in Baghdad at the turn of the nineteenth century; in 1825 it made its way to the British Library. Operating in two different centuries and at a significant geographical remove, these two collectors – like many others – share more than a connection to this manuscript, however. Alongside the manuscripts they collected, they have left traces in the form of archival documents that help to explain how their collections were obtained and preserved. In this paper, I reexamine the archives associated with several manuscript scholars and collectors. These archival artifacts, I argue, are as significant as the manuscripts themselves and ignoring them enables the colonial and nationalist motivations behind manuscript collection to be overlooked. Despite the impression left by many contemporary studies, Eastern manuscripts were not merely passive witnesses to a distant past. The modern academic habit of looking for origins by attending to manuscripts and not archives has led to persistent and repeated episodes of misrecognition, with ongoing political and epistemological consequences. I propose an alternative approach to manuscript studies that examines collected objects and archival records together, inviting sustained reflection on the future of manuscript studies while urging historians to reconsider these materials and the histories they embody.

About the Speaker:

Maroun El Houkayem is a PhD candidate in the Graduate Program in Religion at Duke University. His work lies at the intersection of history, religious studies, and postcolonial studies. His dissertation focuses on the constitution and development of major Syriac manuscript collections, along with the scholarly practices surrounding them. It analyzes how acts of cataloging, collecting, and studying these manuscripts have shaped the self-representation and identity of their custodians, while influencing broader discourses on colonialism, nationalism, and religion in various global contexts.

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*** CPS and CNRC will also host an informal workshop with Maroun

“More Than Records: The Case for Archives as Cultural Heritage”

Friday March 28, 1:30-2:45 pm

216 Pills. (Formerly Nicholson) #135 Fireplace Room

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These events are part of the Exploring Assumptions Series and is cosponsored by The Department of Classical & Near Eastern Religions & Cultures. For more info: https://futureofthepastlab.com/