This Wednesday, the Oriental Institute Members' Lecture Series continues with a talk by U of C alum Cynthia L. Miller, followed by a reception in the LaSalle Bank Education Center. Join us!
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Languages Without Speakers: Reconstructing Ancient Near Eastern Languages from Epigraphic Fragments
Cynthia L. Miller, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Wednesday, October 19
8:00 PM
At the Oriental Institute, 1155 E 58th St
Free
Artifacts of language pose unique challenges for reconstruction and interpretation. Like other material artifacts, epigraphic remains are often fragmentary and enigmatic. Initially, the script must be identified and deciphered so that the text can be read, but beyond these preliminary tasks lies the real interest of Semitic philologists: What can these languages fragments tell us about the language as a whole? What can we learn about how the language functioned in an ancient society? Philologists must find ways to approach these issues without any access to living speakers of the language in question or to the ancient society within which the language was used. This illustrated lecture examines the challenges that Semitic philologists face in reconstructing the languages of the ancient Near East based on fragmentary epigraphic remains, and considers the ways in which linguistic techniques can shed light on these questions.
Speaker Cynthia Miller is Associate Professor, Department of Hebrew and Semitic Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Professor Miller specializes in the syntax and pragmatics of Classical Hebrew and the related Northwest Semitic languages. She is particularly interested in moving the field of traditional Semitic philology to an understanding of, and appreciation for, contemporary linguistic approaches to the study of ancient texts. She received her Ph.D. with honors from the University of Chicago in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and the Department of Linguistics (joint degree).
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Please contact Maria Krasinski in the Membership Office with any questions:
(773) 834 9777 or oi-membership@uchicago.edu. This lecture is is free and open to the public. Members are reminded that they may dine at the University of Chicago's Quadrangle Club prior to lectures.
The Oriental Institute is located at 1155 East 58th Street, Chicago IL 60637.
Persons needing assistance should contact (773) 702 9513.
This too:
As most of you know, David Frankfurter (University of New Hampshire) will be the guest speaker Thursday night at the Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins, on the theme "From Holy Man to Ritual Experts" in late antiquity. David will be arriving on campus in early afternoon (around 1:30 or so), and would be pleased to talk informally with whoever may be interested (probably in the Logan 2nd floor lounge) before the seminar attendees do dinner at Houston Hall around 6.
You can check on any details with the co-chairs of the PSCO, T. J. Wellman and Harry Tolley. Or with me.
I don't have any pre-seminar reading "assignments" to offer, although I suspect that a review of Peter Brown's "holy man" publications and their reviewers would be appropriate as well as David's recent article on "Syncretism and the Holy Man in Late Antique Egypt," Journal of Early Christian Studies (2003). When in doubt, go to google (or similarly).
Note also that at 4:30 that same afternoon, Eric Rebillard (of the Departments of Classics and History, Cornell University) will present a paper sponsored by the Ethnohistory Workshop on the status of saints' relics at the end of the fourth century entitled "Relics and the real presence of the saints: the late Roman evidence" (Room 345 of the University Museum, 4:30-6:30). It may be that David will also want to attend!
For further details on PSCO, see
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/psco/
On David Frankfurter,
http://www.unh.edu/history/fac_frankfurter.htm
RAK
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Robert A. Kraft, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania
227 Logan Hall (Philadelphia PA 19104-6304); tel. 215 898-5827
kraft@ccat.sas.upenn.edu
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html
(From the ANE list and the PSCO list, respectively.)
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