Institut für den Nahen und Mittleren Osten
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Marianna Mazzola

Dr. Marianna Mazzola

Humboldt-Stipendiatin (Judaistik)

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Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
Institut für den Nahen und Mittleren Osten
Veterinärstr. 1
80539 München


Trained as an oriental philologist at Pisa University, I earned a joint-PhD in History from Ghent University (Belgium) and the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. My research pertains to the cultural and social history of the Medieval Middle East (7th-13th c.), with a focus on Syriac Christianity and its relations with Byzantium and Islam. I am particularly interested in Syriac responses to interconfessional and intercultural contacts in the Byzantine and Islamicate world, especially the circulation and adaptation of sources and ideas in Syriac historiography and doctrinal excerpts collections, and Syriac Orthodox accommodation of former notions of political leadership under the new Islamic rule. Beside my historical research, I keep engaging in the philological endeavor of producing editions, translations and commentary of Syriac historiographical texts.

From 2013 to 2017, I worked as doctoral researcher in the context of the ERC project Memory of empire: the post-imperial historiography of Late Antiquity at Ghent University, which explored the historiographical traditions of the Mediterranean in all their cultural and linguistic variety and their interaction. Within this framework, I collaborated to the edition and study of fragmentary historians and carried out personal research on the Ecclesiastical History of Gregory Bar ‘Ebroyo (13th c.). My PhD aimed at studying this work against the background of the previous Byzantine and Syriac history tradition, discussing both the continuation of former trends, the innovation of Bar ‘Ebroyo as historiographer and in what manner these relate to the specific socio-political context of 13th c. Middle East.

In 2018, I joined as postdoctoral researcher the FWO Project Dionysius of Tell-Mahre, Early Syriac historiography and its Byzantine and Arab context (582-842) (2018-2021), working on the edition and study of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre’s Chronicle, with a focus on Christian-Muslim relations and the intersection of Syriac, Byzantine and Muslim historiographical traditions in Dionysius’ work.

In 2021-22 I was postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the study of Christianity (Hebrew University of Jerusalem).

I am currently Humboldt Foundation Fellow at the Institute of Near and Middle Eastern Studies (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich), where I am working on Syriac Orthodox conceptualization of kingship in the Omayyad and Abbasid period (7th-10th c.), looking at the dynamics of persistence, rupture and adaptation of former Roman-Christian concepts of politeia in the new Islamic political context.

Marianna Mazzola is member of the Munich Research Center for Jewish-Arabic Cultures. For further information consult the profile on the website.

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