BeInf · Beyond Influence: The Connected Histories of Ethiopic and Syriac Christianity

The innovative BeInf project interrogates the connected histories of Ethiopic and Syriac Christianity in their various complexities and nuances. It accomplishes this task through a series of five discrete, but complementary case studies addressing: 1. Aramaic loanwords in Ethiopic; 2. the so-called Nagran Episode, in which the sixth-century Aksumite ruler Kaleb intervened on behalf of Syriac Christians who were being persecuted in the Arabian peninsula; 3. the Ethiopic Abba Gärima Gospels, including especially their illumination programs; 4. the hagiography of the Nine Saints, who are alleged to have brought about a “second christianisation” of Ethiopia in the late fifth and early sixth centuries; 5. the Ethiopic reception of Syriac literature. BeInf’s innovation is multifaceted. It adopts a multi-disciplinary approach that brings together methods that are traditionally categorized as distinct and disconnected, including especially art history, linguistics, manuscript studies, philology, textual studies, and history. In addition, it rejects area studies and unites fields that have traditionally been isolated and siloed off in problematic ways. Finally, it proposes to move beyond influence as an analytical category for analysing connections, contacts, exchanges, and the actors and cultural brokers responsible for them and instead adopts a methodological and theoretical stance inspired by “connected history”, especially in the sense of histoire croisée. With these innovations, BeInf is positioned to make significant, long-lasting contributions to the field of Ethiopic Studies, both in content and in concept, while also serving as a paradigm-shifting model for other projects in the humanities addressing areas of inquiry that have traditionally been dominated by ill-framed questions of influence and that are primed to move beyond influence to explore connected histories with all their nuance, complexity, and texture through a multi-disciplinary approach.