Muriel Debié

Muriel Debié studied classics at the Ecole normale supérieure (ENS) in Paris. She fell into Syriac by chance, thanks to her interest in a Syriac text, the so-called Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios, that was translated almost immediately into Greek and Latin, and then into all the old European languages, and circulated in Russia until the 18th century. Since then she has kept her hand in with Syriac by teaching it (first at the Ecole normale supérieure and then at the Catholic University of Paris), whilst simultaneously maintaining an active interest in Greek and other Eastern Christian literature. For her PhD (Paris IV-Sorbonne) she specialized in the history of historical writing. Since 2000 she has held a permanent research position in the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris, in the Institute for Textual Research and History (IRHT). She is currently finishing a monograph on Syriac Historiography entitled (in French): Writing History in Syriac: Intercultural Transmissions and Identity Formation between Hellenism and Islam. She is a founding member of theSociété d'études syriaques (Society for Syriac Studies) that organizes an international meeting every year on a specific topic of Syriac Studies, which is then published as a guide to the subject. The 6th volume, edited by Muriel, is-surprise, surprise!-dedicated to Syriac Historiography. At ISAW Muriel will be working collaboratively on a monograph on multilingualism and diglossia in the Late Antique Near East.