Preface
p. 9-10
Texte intégral
1Organizing an international congress that brings together over two hundred and fifty participants from five continents during a pandemic is an experience for which one can hardly be prepared. When COVID-19 hit Europe and strict lockdown measures were implemented (March 2020 for Belgium), the organization of the congress was already well underway: many colleagues had already paid their registration fees and booked their hotels and transportation, funding had been secured, venues had been booked, and the program for the week had been set, including visits, a cocktail reception, and a gala dinner.
2The pandemic forced us to postpone the congress twice, first from July 2020 to July 2021, and then from July 2021 to July 2022. The Twelfth International Congress of Coptic Studies of the International Association for Coptic Studies (IACS) was finally held at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) from July 11 to 16, 2022. Travel restrictions following the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine, the still tense health situation, and difficulties in obtaining visas also prevented or discouraged some colleagues from joining us in person. However, one must make the best of a difficult situation. To ensure the participation of as many people as possible and the widest possible dissemination, we allowed some speakers to present their papers remotely and live-stream the plenary reports on the congress website, where the bibliographies are still available.1
3Despite these challenges, the congress was successfully organized and took place under good conditions, thanks to the unwavering support of our colleagues and the patience of the participants. The plenary sessions, held each morning in the Dupréel amphitheatre—renamed Alexandria for the occasion—provided an overview of our field of study. The parallel sessions hosted around two hundred papers, presenting new findings and scientific projects. The week was punctuated with festive and cultural events: a cocktail reception preceded by an oriental music recital, a visit to the Royal Museums of Art and History, a gala dinner in the enchanting setting of the island in the Bois de la Cambre lake, just a stone’s throw from the university, and finally, a tour of the historic centre of Brussels.
4This volume is the first in a series of three, which will comprise the proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of Coptic Studies. After the presidential address by David Brakke, president of the IACS, the volume brings together eleven contributions—as well as a stand-alone bibliography—from the plenary reports delivered by leading specialists in the main disciplines of Coptic studies. It provides an overview of current research in the field and focuses on methodological challenges as well as emerging new approaches. The contributions offer a critical and bibliographical review of recent work in diverse areas such as monasticism, liturgy, codicology and palaeography, art history, contemporary Coptic studies, linguistics, Nubian studies, archaeology, papyrology, Copto-Arabic studies, magic, and literature, reflecting the richness of Coptic studies at the dawn of the third millennium. This volume also includes the IACS resolution on the handling of cultural heritage (p. 33–35), discussed on July 13 in a special session and adopted at the Association’s General Assembly on July 16.
5The next volume, co-edited with Anne Boud’hors, will bring together articles based on contributions presented during the panel organized in honour of Wolf-Peter Funk (1943–2021). A final volume will include selected papers from the various parallel sessions. This series of publications aims to enhance the visibility of Coptic studies and reflect the diversity of the exchanges that took place during the congress. For the first time in the history of the IACS, the publication of the proceedings in printed form, as well as Open Access, will facilitate the dissemination of the most recent developments in the field of Coptic studies to both the academic and general public, regardless of financial and material resources.
Notes de bas de page
Auteurs
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Alain Delattre
Alain Delattre is professor of Greek literature and papyrology at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and director of studies in ‘Coptic language and documentary sources’ at the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE). His research focuses on Greek and Coptic papyrology and epigraphy, as well as Egyptian monasticism. He is the author of Papyrus coptes et grecs du monastère d’apa Apollô de Baouît conservés aux Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire de Bruxelles (2007) and, with Jitse Dijkstra and Jacques van der Vliet, of Christian Inscriptions from Egypt and Nubia. A Critical Bulletin (2013-2022) (2024).
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Élodie Mazy
Élodie Mazy holds a degree in Classical Languages and Literature and History of Antiquity from the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). In 2022, she defended her PhD thesis titled “Temps, sociabilité et économie des fêtes en Égypte du ve au viiie siècle”. Her research specializes in Greek and Coptic papyrology, as well as the social, cultural, and economic history of Late Antique Egypt. She has authored several articles on topics such as books and libraries, alongside studies on accounting and taxation documents. Her thesis is set to be published in the Studia Papyrologica et Aegyptiaca Parsinia series in 2025.
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Perrine Pilette
Perrine Pilette is a researcher at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), affiliated with the Orient & Méditerranée research unit (UMR 8167, team “Islam médiéval”󠄂, Paris). Her research focuses mainly on Copto-Arabic literature, the history of the Coptic Church in the medieval period, codicology and Middle Arabic. She is the author of numerous articles in these fields and is working on a critical edition of Copto-Arabic historiographical texts (History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria and History of the Churches and Monasteries of Egypt).
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Naïm Vanthieghem
Naïm Vanthieghem is a research fellow at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), affiliated with the Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes (IRHT). His research focuses on documentary sources from the Nile Valley and their implications for the economic, social, and intellectual history of the Middle Ages. Among others, he has co-authored, with Mathieu Tillier, The Book of the Cow: An Early Qurʾānic Codex on Papyrus (P. Hamb. Arab. 68) (2024), and Mariages et séparations en Égypte au Moyen Âge : Actes inédits sur papyrus, papier, parchemin et tissu (2024).
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
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Jean-Charles Coulon et Korshi Dosoo (dir.)
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Une autre histoire
Histoire, temps et passé dans les Vies et Passions latines (IVe-XIe siècle)
Marie-Céline Isaïa
2023
Voies et voix de la philologie classique
Éditer les textes anciens : comment et pour quel public ?
François Bougard, Dario Mantovani et Luigi-Alberto Sanchi (dir.)
2025
Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of Coptic Studies (Brussels, 11–16 July 2022)
Volume I. Plenary Papers
Alain Delattre, Élodie Mazy, Perrine Pilette et al. (dir.)
2025
D’Homère à Érasme
La transmission des classiques grecs et latins
Leighton D Reynolds et Nigel G. Wilson Luigi-Alberto Sanchi et Aude Cohen-Skalli (trad.)
2021
Magikon zōon
Animal et magie dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Âge
Jean-Charles Coulon et Korshi Dosoo (dir.)
2022
Une autre histoire
Histoire, temps et passé dans les Vies et Passions latines (IVe-XIe siècle)
Marie-Céline Isaïa
2023
Voies et voix de la philologie classique
Éditer les textes anciens : comment et pour quel public ?
François Bougard, Dario Mantovani et Luigi-Alberto Sanchi (dir.)
2025
Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of Coptic Studies (Brussels, 11–16 July 2022)
Volume I. Plenary Papers
Alain Delattre, Élodie Mazy, Perrine Pilette et al. (dir.)
2025
