Multilingualism in Eurasian Premodern Societies: Social Hierarchies and Space (WP2024-1-18)
Urban Multilingualism Workshop Series
Workshop 2: Urban Religious Spaces and their Languages
Venue: Central European University, 1100 Vienna, Quellenstraße 51
D-001
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Thursday, 12 June, 2025
10:00 – 11:30
Introduction: Languages, Religions, and Urban Space
Katalin Szende (Central European University)
Keynote lecture
The Preacher and the Crowd: Dynamics of Religious Communication in Medieval Cities
Pavlína Rychterová
11:30 – 12:00
Coffee break
12:00 – 13:30
Session 1
Chair: Michael Jursa
Conceptual Interdependencies in the Bilingual Urban Societies of Early Mesopotamia
Gebhard J. Selz (University of Vienna)
The Main Name-types of Individuals Bearing Middle Iranian Anthroponyms in the Near East
Ran Zadok (University of Tel Aviv)
From Persepolis to Isfahan: Spatial Cognition and Ideology in Some Iranian Cities
Kianoosh Rezania (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
13:30 – 14:30
Lunch break
14:30 – 16:00
Session 2
Chair: Claudia Rapp
How does religion “take place”? Metaphorological reflections on the relation between stone, flesh, and word from a socio-semiotic perspective
Volkhard Krech (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
Some Rhetorical Terms in Buddhist Sanskrit and Their Translation
Jens Erland Braarvig (Norwegian Institute of Philology, Oslo)
Multilingual Communities and Liturgical Chrono-Topics in Medieval Jerusalem and St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai: Inter-Spatial and Inter-Textual Connections between Byzantine, Arabic, Caucasian, Slavic and Graeco-Italian Traditions
Velizar Sadovski (Austrian Academy of Sciences)
16:00 – 16:30
Coffee break
16:30 – 18:00
Session 3
Chair: Bernhard Palme
Religious Translation and Urban Development in Late Antique Athens
Ivan Mileković (University of Pennsylvania’s Museum)
Urban Religious Protest and Multilingualism in Late Antiquity
Mateusz Fafinski (University of Erfurt / Max Weber-Kolleg)
Citadels or Charitable Complexes? Exploring the Distinct Urban Identities of the Ilkhanid Cities of Ghazaniyya and Sultaniyya
Atri Hatef Naiemi (University of British Columbia, Vancouver)
19:00 – 21:00
Speakers’ Dinner
Friday, 13 June, 2025
9:00 – 10:30
Session 4
Chair: Judith Majorossy
The Intersection of Religious Languages in the Public Spaces of Seventeenth-century Vilnius
Jakub Niedźwiedź (Jagiellonian University, Kraków)
Religious Divisions in Urban Spaces of Poland-Lithuania: Virtual (Legal) and Real (Physical)
Olga Kozubska (Institut für Vergleichende Städtegeschichte, Münster)
Multilingualism and the Ideals of Reformation in Early Modern Upper Hungarian Towns
Peter Benka (Comenius University Bratislava)
10:30 – 11:00
Coffee break
11:00 – 12:30
Session 5
Chair: Jonathan Lyon
Challenging Communication in the City of God: A Comparative Approach Towards Linguistic Obstacles Faced by Late Medieval Germanic-Speaking Pilgrim Traveller-Writers
Karsten Johannes Schuil (CEU)
Multilingualism in Pilgrimage Accounts: The Case of Jerusalem
Jaroslav Svátek (Charles University Prague)
Language Use and Book Culture of Late Medieval Nuns Living in High-prestige Convents in Hungary and Bohemia
Ágnes Korondi (Széchényi National Library, Budapest)
12:30 – 13:30
Lunch break
13:30 – 15:00
Session 6
Chair: Ovidiu Olar
The Replacement of Church Slavonic by Romanian in the Romanian-speaking Lands
Vladislav Knoll (Czech Academy of Sciences / Charles University, Prague)
One Faith, One Script, Two Languages: Religious Vernacularization, Bilingualism, and Confessional Identity in the Calvinist Romanian Communities of Banat (16th–17th cc.)
Cristian Gaşpar (Central European University)
“…Bog celleşānuhu...” A Quadrilingualism in Ottoman Catechetical Literature
Marijana Mišević (Central European University)
15:00 – 15:30
Coffee break
15:30 – 17:00
Session 7
Chair: István Perczel
Garshuni Malayalam and Arabi Malayalam: Language, Script and Religion in Early Modern Kerala
Emy Merin Joy (Central European University)
Multilingualism and Religion in Early Modern Hội An (Vietnam)
Martin Christ (University of Erfurt)
Reimagining the Role of Languages in Kazakhstani Religious Space
Gulnar Nadirova (Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty)
17:00 – 18:00
Closing Discussion
