Religion and everyday writing across the first millennium: The case of Hebrew-script documents
Abstract:
Why did non-Muslims in the medieval Middle East often employ non-Arabic scripts even when writing in Arabic? Focusing on Jews’ use of Hebrew script for mundane communication and record keeping, this talk will examine how and why everyday writing in the Middle East became increasingly religiously coded over the course of the first millennium—and what the shift suggests about the bagginess of “religion” as a category in medieval Islamicate societies.
Video Recording:
Eve Krakowski is Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Judaic Studies at Princeton University. She’s a social historian of medieval Egypt and Syria, focusing on the history of Jews and Judaism in both regions. Her first book, Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt: Female Adolescence, Jewish Law and Ordinary Culture, came out in 2018.