iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

📚 @mideastmedieval.bsky.social is hosting a Zoom conversation on publishing an academic book related to early Islam / medieval Middle East on 19 Oct at 10am ET / 4pm CET. please circulate the flyer far & wide-- membership is not required to attend!

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Reposted by Alison Vacca

Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā: The Journal of Middle East Medievalists @alusuralwusta.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

New article alert! Let’s start w/ a personal manuscript from 9/15th cent., including a letter from Cairo’s chief judge & a list of books for sale from Mamluk Baalbek. This article challenges the divide btw documentary & manuscript studies through a fresh look at texts, material & social practice

Arabic manuscript. Letter from Taqī al-Dīn al-Akhnāʾī to ʿAlam al-Dīn al-Akhnāʾī in Damascus. Damascus, National Library of Syria, MS 2969, fol. 163r.

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

I think that the open access was a limited-time offer and I posted near the end of it. I can message it to you, but I think that your messages are closed?

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

sharing Steve Rapp's new book on Georgian literature: historiography, hagiography, liturgy, translations, all in a short & accessible format Also, free to download for the next day or so!

cambridge.org

Early Christian Georgian Literature

Cambridge Core - History of Religion - Early Christian Georgian Literature

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Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā: The Journal of Middle East Medievalists @alusuralwusta.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

New article alert! If you were to list important Arabic poets, who would you include? Abū Nuwās, Abū Tammām, al-Buḥturī, al-Mutanabbī…? In the 14th cent, Ibn Nubāta included all of them & more. He also included himself. Check out this new article about how self-citation worked in Mamluk texts.

journals.library.columbia.edu

Thus Spoke the Author | Al-ʿUsur al-Wusta

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Caucasus Heritage Watch @caucasushw.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Our book is out! Based on CHW’s research on the Nagorno-Karabakh wars, HERITAGE FORENSICS offers a new framework for investigating cultural heritage caught up in war, ethnic cleansing and secrecy. Download free Ebook or order (30% discount code 09BCARD). www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

okay, had a hard time choosing my favorites actually, so I've added some more: the church dedicated to Hripsime at Goshavank, Mart'a of Alania and her husband, the mermaid in al-Qazwini's geography, and Saint George saving a princess from another church in Svanet'i

Two churches in the monastery complex of Gošavankʻ, showing angled roofs, narrow windows, and conical domes. On the right is the church dedicated to Hṙip‘simē. Two cross-stones are erected to the right of the entrance, a third resting against the building to the left. Several other ornamentations are on the walls of the building itself. The conical dome has been replaced with glass in a modern restoration effort.

Manuscript image showing the Roman emperor Nikephoros on the left and Martʻa on the right, both wearing imperial robes (lōros) with crowns and nimbuses. Above their heads, Jesus stands with his arms outreached to acknowledge both of them. The backdrop is violently gold with border and inscriptions in red.

Rubricated Arabic text on top, with a box at the bottom of the folio that shows the sea and land. In the sea is a large orange fish in the middle of the page. To its left is a man in blue-grey robes and white turban. The man looks at and holds his hands out to a woman on the left, whose arm reaches out of the rubrications. She appears naked. The top of her legs are pressed together and she holds her hands up to her head, her hair streaming out in all directions.

The painting shows Saint George on horseback on the left, with a cape billowing behind him and a nimbus around his head. His horse jumps over a serpent-like creature. On the right is a princess wearing a crown, standing next to an architectural detail that seems to show onlookers from a nearby castle.

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

working on the captions and alt-text for images in my book manuscript, so taking a break to share my favorites! Information in the alt-text, but basically: Amirandarejaniani on a church in Svaneti, a document from the Cairo Geniza, Dariali pass, and the mysterious augusta on the coins of Herakleios

The painting shows Amiran on horseback on the right, dressed in armor with a tasseled helmet. He thrusts a sword through the head of a devi, who appears mostly human, but hairy with a horn sprouting from his head. Ribbons of blood fall from the wound and the devi holds the sword. In his other hand, the devi attacks Amiran’s horse. An inscription in Georgian appears between Amiran and the devi.

Two folios from a manuscript that no longer exists, found in the Geniza of the Ben Ezra synagogue in Fustat (modern Cairo). A corner is missing from one folio, depriving us of a portion of the top seven lines on each side. A hole rips through the other folio, losing parts of the story through time and humidity. Water stains seep through both.

Image of mountainous terrain of the Dariali pass, showing a mountain in the background on the left. In the foreground rests the remains of a fort at a high elevation, clearly difficult to reach. To the right another mountain reaches up with a rocky face. Between the remains of the fort and the mountain is a dirt road with two tracks, heading uphill. Very small humans give a sense of the dramatic scale.

On one side of the coin is Herakleios (r. 610-41), one of the most famous Roman emperors. He wears a chlamys and a crown topped with a cross, framed by an inscription that identifies him. On the other side are two additional portraits with a cross between them. They both wear crowns topped with crosses, though less detailed than Herakleios’s. The figure on the left seems to be Herakleios Constantine, Herakleios’s son and heir. He appears on many more of Herakleios’s coins, labeled there so the identification is secure. The figure next to Herakleios Constantine is an unidentified but clearly royal woman, recognizable from the longer prependulia, the pendants descending from her crown.

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

apologies-- it isn't *my* first article, but rather the first @alusuralwusta.bsky.social article of the year 😆

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

first article of 2026! and this one comes with a sound file to imagine the chatter & noises that filled the air of a Sasanian city.

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Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā: The Journal of Middle East Medievalists @alusuralwusta.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

Thanks to all authors, reviewers, & readers as we close out issue 33! We published 550 pages in 2025: 7 articles; a thematic dossier w/ 4 more articles; a roundtable; an Arabic edition; a pedagogy file; 7 book reviews; & some short communications. Here’s a thread to gather some highlights! 🧵

journals.library.columbia.edu

Al-ʿUsur al-Wusta

Middle East Medievalists (MEM) is an international professional non-profit association of scholars interested in the study of the Islamic lands of the Middle East during the medieval period (defined r...

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

of course, this sort of collaborative project would not be possible w/o a great interdisciplinary team. We met in Chicago & Dublin to work, so here’s the obligatory Guinness pic

selfie showing the six authors of the Umar-Leo book, each holding a glass of Guiness

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

that gives us 6 different versions of the correspondence btw ʿUmar and Leo, some penned by Christians and others by Muslims, in 4 languages. and in the introduction to this volume we show that they’re all actually related!

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

but the amazing Latinists on our team found FOUR additional mss of the Latin, different from Champier’s text. 3 from Spain, 1 from Carolingian France. It’s the oldest known ms translated from Arabic

manuscript page from the correspondence in Latin

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

the Christian Arabic does show clear relationship to the Latin printed version, which appears in the works of a 16th-cent French scholar. This is the Latin version modern scholars already know about

babel.hathitrust.org

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

there is another Arabic version in 10th-cent. manuscript from Sinai, but this one reports a Christian version of the correspondence and does not show direct relationship w/ the Muslim Arabic. *it* lays out an argument abt how Christianity is correct...

manuscript page from the correspondence in Arabic; this version was composed by a Christian and champions Christianity

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

the Aljamiado overlaps for a few paragraphs w/ the Muslim Arabic version, a 9th or 10th-cent. manuscript once in Damascus & now in Istanbul. only one spare quire remains, also presenting Islamic doctrine

manuscript page from the correspondence in Arabic; this version was composed by a Muslim and champions Islam

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

but the same biblical quotes—in the same order—are cited in the Aljamiado, produced by a Muslim in Spain in 2 mss (one 15th cent, one 16th). The Aljamiado has an isnad back to 8th-cent Syria. *this* version explains how Islam is correct and Christianity is not

manuscript page from the correspondence in Aljamiado (Romance in Arabic script)

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

we started with the Armenian, which was translated from a lost Greek version. It’s in an 8th-cent. text, preserved in Ilkhanid-era manuscript. It champions Christianity & explains how Islam is incorrect

Ilkhanid-era manuscript in Armenian, with dots down the left-hand side to show that it's a direct quote (of the correspondence)

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

in this volume, we edit and translate all known versions of the correspondence btw the Umayyad caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (717-720) & the Byzantine emperor Leo the Isaurian (717-741). So far, seems reasonable. but the texts jump around the Mediterranean in circuitous paths

gold coin of the Umayyad caliph Umar b. Abd al-Aziz, with Arabic writing in field: "there is no god except God alone, who has no associate"

gold coin of Byzantine emperor Leo the Isaurian, showing him holding a globus cruciger with cross on crown

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

we have a cover! super excited to get close to publication on this project! it’s actually a pretty wild ride, so here’s a brief explanation: 👇

book cover for A Connecting Polemic in the Medieval Mediterranean, from the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures of the University of Chicago. The image is a 16th-cent depiction of Leo the Isaurian, superimposed over a 10th-cent Arabic manuscript

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

congratulations and well deserved!

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

Caucasus Heritage Watch has started crowdfunding. Anyone unfamiliar with their work should devote some time to their website. Satellite monitoring is currently the only way to track the condition of hundreds of Armenian cultural heritage sites in Azerbaijan. Monitoring supports accountability.

crowdfunding.cornell.edu

Caucasus Heritage Watch

Help Cornell University raise $10,000 for the project: Caucasus Heritage Watch. Your gift will make a difference!

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Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā: The Journal of Middle East Medievalists @alusuralwusta.bsky.social · 27/09/2025

New article alert! Join us in exploring a phrase from Ibn Saʿīd al-Maghribī’s 13th-c. geography. He refers to the Damādim of northeast Africa as “Tatars of the Sūdān.” Hannah Barker interrogates the racializing discourses at play in such comparative claims. [image: British Library Or 1524]

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sepoy @sepoy.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

points are made

Flyer (white paper, black type)
Faculty
Your Students are under attack
Your TAs are under attack
Your job is under attack
Academia is under attack
..
your silence will not save you
Undergrads say... Strike Now!

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 24/08/2025

I desperately wanted to stuff this one in my purse, but I was told customs would stop me

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 16/08/2025

Oh, master of spices, I await your knowledge

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 16/08/2025

Oh, so you are traveling the Silk Road, then??

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Knight First Amendment Institute @knightcolumbia.org · 04/08/2025

This morning, members of the Knight Institute’s leadership team published a critical analysis of Columbia University’s settlement agreement with the Trump administration. Read the full analysis here: knightcolumbia.org/blog/what-th...

knightcolumbia.org

What the Columbia Settlement Really Means

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

“Who Remembers the Armenians?” I remember them and I ride the nightmare bus with them each night and my coffee, this morning I’m drinking it with them You, murderer Who remembers you? — Najwan Darwish, Nothing More to Lose (2014)

tandfonline.com

Gazafication and Genocide by Attrition in Artsakh/Nagorno Karabakh and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Published in Journal of Genocide Research (Ahead of Print, 2024)

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Yair Wallach @yairwallach.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

The Ben Gurion University Middle Eastern Studies department statement - now in English and in Arabic. Israel's policies in Gaza and the nature of the warfare there have exceeded all human and legal standards. تتجاوز سياسة إسرائيل في غزة ونوع الحرب هناك كل معيار إنساني، قانوني وأخلافي

Stop the War Now!

Statement from the Faculty of the Department of Middle East Studies,

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

We, the faculty of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, issue this statement to unequivocally call for an immediate end to Israel's war crimes in Gaza. We say this as researchers of Middle East studies, whose work, among other topics, includes Palestinian studies, Israeli-Arab relations, the region's social and political conditions, its history and religious movements, but above all, as Israeli citizens living in this country. Israel's policies in Gaza and the nature of the warfare there have exceeded all human and legal standards. Israeli policy has rendered Gaza uninhabitable, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, starvation of the civilian population, destruction of civic infrastructure, health, welfare, schools, universities, and residential buildings, attacks on medical and rescue teams, and the prevention of entry by the foreign press. According to human rights organizations, the mortality rate in the Gaza Strip has created the largest orphan crisis in modern history. This mortality is partly a direct result of the policy of starvation and attacks on those seeking to obtain food for their families at aid distribution sites. This destruction is accompanied by the articulation of plans to conquer the Strip and establish a military regime there, while expelling the Palestinian population. This policy is entirely contrary to basic morality, as well as the laws of war. A consensus is emerging in the international research community that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

إيقاف الحرب الآن / بيان رأي صادرعن قسم دراسات الشرق الأوسط ق جامعة بن غوريون ق النقب
نحن، أعضاء فسحم دراسات الشرق الأوسط في جامعة بن غوربون في النقب، نصدر هذا البيان مناشدين بأوضح ما يمكن: يجب أن تتوقف جرانم الحرمب الي ترذكبها إسرانيل في غزة. نقول ذلك بصغتنا باحثات وباحثين في مجال دراسات الشرق الأوسط، وأيضا بصغتنا باحثات وباحثس في الدراسات الفلسطينية، العلاقات الإسرائيلية العربية، في الوضع الاجتماي والسياسي في المنطقة، تاريخها وتاريخ ح^تها الدينية، وبالأساس كمواطنات ومواطنش نعيش في هذه البلاد.

تتجاوز سياسة إسرافيل في غزة ونوع الحرب هناك كل معيار إنساني، قانوني وأخلافي. السياسة الأسراشيلية تحؤل غزة إلى مكان غير صالح للحياة، فقد أنت إلى مقتل عثرات الآلاف من الأبرياء، تجوبع السع ن المدنيش، تدمير البئ التحتية؛ مؤتسات الصحة، الرفا٥، الرمية والتعليم، التدمير المنهبي للمباني السكنية، الاعتداء عإى طوافم الأنقاذ والطواقم الطبية، وكذلك منع دخول الصحافة الأجنبية إلى غزة. حب منظمات حقوق الأنسان، فإن الوفيات في قطاع غؤة خلغت أزمة الأيتام الكبرى في التاريخ الحديث. هذ٥ الوفيات هبى نتيجة مباشرة لسياسة التجوبع والاعتداء عإى من يحاولون تاءمش الغذاء لعانعدتهم في مواقع توزيع المساعدات. كل ذلك يرافق هع خطط لاحتلال فطاع غزة ولإقامة نظام عسكري فيه يشمل تهجير السع ن الفلسطينيش منه. هذ٥ السياسة تناقض ٠كليا الأخلاق الأساسية وكذلك قوانين الحرب. في أوساط المجتمع البحي الدوني يتبلورإجماع عإى أن إسراثيل مسؤولة عن ارتع ب إبادة جماعية.

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Dr Sarah Irving @drtermagant.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

This is the Washington Post (yes, that one): names in Arabic and English, and ages, of all 18,500 children killed in Gaza, plus portraits and stories where available: www.washingtonpost.com/world/intera...

washingtonpost.com

60,000 Gazans have been killed. 18,500 were children. These are their names.

Palestinian children have been killed at a rate of more than one per hour since the war began.

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Kindred Voices by Michael Pifer (2021)

Image of the cover of Kindred Voices by Michael Pifer, showing Rumi Seljuk tiles

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

I interrupt your daily existential panic to suggest reading this book on a literary history of Anatolia, blending Armenian, Persian, Turkish, Greek. This poem switches btw Turkish & Armenian. The girl's last line is in Armenian: "Let us love one another, it will be sweet"

Poem translated from Middle Armenian with two lines left in Turkish:
Someone rode a gray stallion,
She came and passed by, daring as a Mongol,
She has eyes that would conquer Tabriz,
Her eyebrows bore away my mind.
She dropped an apple. I paid no heed.
She dropped another. I stooped and picked it up.
(In Turkish:) You are a Muslim, daughter of a mulla.
I am Hovhannes, son of a priest.
(In Armenian:) What does your apple have to do with me?

The girl's response, with the Armeno-Turkish written out in modern Turkish script.
(In Turkish:) Come along, come along, infidel's son.
Drop the absurd talk with us!
You are Hovhannes, son of a priest,
I am Muslim, daughter of a mulla.
(In Armenian:) Let us love one another, it will be sweet.

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CUIMC Stands Up @cuimcstandsup.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Thank you to Rise Up, Columbia for the astute analysis as usual and the footnote shoutout to CUIMC Stands Up! We’re a group of medical campus faculty & staff firmly against the exchange of our values for grant funds, even as our jobs & careers are at risk. 🔗 open.substack.com/pub/riseupco...

Columbia's Agreement with the Federal Government
RISE UP, COLUMBIA
TODAY AT 12:17 PM
The Columbia administration has finally done what many of us have urged it not to do: it has signed a bad agreement with the federal government to address the government's phony concerns about
Columbia. Here is the document. And here, importantly, is President Shipman's letter outlining her view of the document.

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AAUP @aaup.org · 24/07/2025

Columbia University’s agreement with the Trump administration is a disaster for academic freedom, freedom of speech, & the independence of American higher education. Never in the history of our nation has an educational institution so thoroughly bent to the will of an autocrat. 1/

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Najam Haider @nhaider.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Barnard and Columbia: Profiles in Cowardice. Teaching students that the proper moral response to genocide is to shut the fuck up. gothamist.com/news/columbi...

gothamist.com

Columbia disciplines 70 students for protest as school pleads with Trump for funding

The disciplinary actions come as the university tries to access about $1 billion in frozen grants, officials said.

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Dr. Nick Posegay @nposegay.northsky.social · 22/07/2025

Good news if you like history, manuscripts, or nice books! 'The Illustrated Cairo Genizah' is now available at *greatly* reduced shipping costs via @theul.bsky.social (UK) and Amazon (worldwide) from this link: linktr.ee/nposegay. There's also a free sample file there with the entire first chapter.

5 copies of 'The Illustrated Cairo Genizah', by Nick Posegay and Melonie Schmierer-Lee, stacked on a light brown tabletop. The books' spines are facing the camera. The book is large and the covers are dark red, with the title and authors' names in white. The cover also has a grid of 21 square images each cut out from a different medieval manuscript.

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

yes, but specimens only found in Russia (near Smolensk), Estonia, Finland, &Sweden. none in the former Khaganate. its association with Khazars is based only on the name Moses-- doesn't name ard al-Khazar mint. Idc abt truth of conversion. just pointing out that every Khazar source has a "yes, but"

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

just learned that Matisse spoke about how he drew inspiration from Byzantine coins, including this one from Tzimiskes's reign

gold coin showing bearded Jesus in the center holding a book with halo, draped clothes. inscription around the margin.

close-up of Matisse's Riffian, showing a male face in faceted gold and teal on a golf backdrop

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Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā: The Journal of Middle East Medievalists @alusuralwusta.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

New article alert! How can we rethink word stress in Classical Arabic? This article looks to an unexpected source: the traditional recitation of metra in Persian metrics. This evidence clarifies controversial patterning in Classical Arabic, with implications for Proto-Arabic word stress, as well

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

woah, thanks for sharing. this is amazing. it's even more powerful as a set. this link has the whole series: africa.si.edu/exhibits/sho...

africa.si.edu

Yinka Shonibare MBE || The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

oooh, yes. ok, so: solidarity and commiseration from the cookie-cutter-remora to the ostrich.

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Alison Vacca @medievalqabq.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

Yes, thank you. But cannibal remoras.

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