In the third book of The Buildings, the sixth-century Roman historian Procopius of Caesarea offers us a glimpse into what life was like in the borderlands between Rome and Persia. Just west of Lake Van in Greater Armenia, he describes how the borderlands of the two empires “lay together promiscuously (ἀναμὶξ)” (Procopius Buildings 3.3.9). Procopius seems to have intended this sexual double entendre to be taken quite literally, for he adds that those who lived here in the district of Kars, whether Roman or Persian subjects, lived together peacefully: they would come together to go to market, share their farms with each other, and even marry one another (Procopius Buildings 3.3.10).

Although Procopius is critical of such “promiscuity” between Romans and Persians, his description suggests that the borderlands of early medieval Armenia were both a cosmopolitan and a contested space, where individuals cultivated vernacular cosmopolitanisms in their day-to-day lives at the interstices of empires. By bringing together specialists from across the academy who study the diverse languages, literatures, and cultures of the spaces where empires meet, this workshop seeks to excavate commingled lives in the borderlands of Armenia and Syria in the late antique and medieval Middle East. In particular, it seeks to shed new light on the practices of non-elites across these borderland zones. It is often repeated, for instance, that premodern Armenia and Syria were places in-between–but what did that in-betweenness look like on the ground? How did Armenians, Syrians, and others navigate “borders,” let alone their shifting relationships to Rome and Persia, in light of the border? Finally, where do borders get crossed, and how might such crossings inform theoretical and methodological approaches to studying these complex regions today?

Schedule of Events

February 16 | Weiser Hall 555 (in-person) and on Zoom: https://umich.zoom.us/j/95833364188 (virtual)

4:00 pm - 6:00 pm | Keynote Address — Kate Franklin (Birkbeck, University of London), Between Ecumene and Ecology: Armenians on the Silk Road and More-than-Human Cosmopolitanism

February 17 | Weiser Hall 555 (in person only)

9:15 am - 9:30 am | Introductory Remarks

9:30 am - 11:00 am | Panel I: Cosmopolitanisms Along and Across the Borders of Rome in Late Antiquity

Respondent: Anna Bonnell Freidin (University of Michigan)

James Wolfe (University of Michigan) "Segmentation, Enclaves, and Forgotten Borders: Navigating the Borderless Borderlands of The Late Roman Near East"

Walter Beers (Hamilton College) "Seeing like a Monastery: Cop'k'/Sophene as Syro-Armenian Borderland in John of Ephesus' Lives of the Eastern Saints"

11:00 am - 11:15 am | Break

11:15 am - 12:45 pm | Panel II: Multilingual Communities at the Crossroads of the Medieval Middle East

Respondent: Kathryn Babayan (University of Michigan)

Polina Ivanova (Justus Liebig University Giessen) "An Invisible Frontier? On the Traces of Medieval Armenian Settlements in Central Anatolia"

Michael Pifer (University of Michigan) "Traveler’s Cant: Language and Public Epigraphy in Fourteenth- Century Armenia"

12:45 pm - 1:45 pm | Lunch for Workshop Participants

1:45 pm - 3:15 pm | Panel III: Drawing Political and Social Borders

Respondent: Juan Cole (University of Michigan)

Lev Weitz (Catholic University of America) "Syriac Cosmopolitanisms on the Plains and the Coasts"

Alison Vacca (Columbia University) "Herakleios's Allies: Turks in the Sasanian-Byzantine Wars"

Register at http://umich.zoom.us/j/95833364188

This workshop, sponsored by the University of Michigan’s Center for Armenian Studies and cosponsored by the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, is organized by James Wolfe (Manoogian Postdoctoral Fellow in Armenian Studies, U-M) and Michael Pifer, (Department of Middle East Studies, U-M).

If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact the armenianstudies@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.