Event

Participants in this interdisciplinary workshop will explore the impact of genre on the reception of legal traditions, and thus, on the shaping of discrete legal cultures. The collaboration of established and emerging scholars of legal traditions of Late Antiquity, and of medieval Jewish, Christian and Islamic cultures, may facilitate a synoptic perspective that cannot be achieved when conducting research in isolation, and may even make apparent certain regional commonalities that cross the boundaries of faith and culture.

9:30am Introduction - Professor Talya Fishman, Department of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania   

10:00am Roman Responsum of Late Antiquity - Anna Dolganov, Department of Classics: Ancient World, Princeton University

11:00am Syriac Christian Case Law - Lev Weitz, Department of  Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University

12:00noon Islamic Fatwa - Professor Jonathan Brown, Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding

2:00pm Rabbinic Responsum of Geonic East - Dr. Zvi Stampfer, Project for the Study of Medieval Judeo-Arabic Literature & Culture, Ben Zvi  Institute, Jerusalem; Talmud Department, Hebrew University

3:00pm Case Law of Medieval Christian Europe - Professor Anders Winroth, Department of History, Yale University

4:00pm Wrap-Up Discussion