Literary Beginnings in Late Antiquity 


International Workshop

9 December 2024,



Late Antiquity coincided with a huge and diverse flourishing in the field of literature. Not only did major developments took place in Greek and Latin, but there also emerged several new literary traditions such as Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic, and Old Church Slavonic, which went on to shape the culture of Christian communities across the first millennium and beyond. While academic interest in the study of each of these traditions is booming, more needs to be done to understand them in a holistic perspective, and to place them against the backdrop of Late Antiquity and Byzantium.


With the help of specialists based in the UK and internationally, the aim of this workshop is to initiate a new academic dialogue across these traditions.