Perrine Pilette earned an MA (2009) and a PhD (2014) in Oriental Languages and Literatures at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL, Belgium). She specializes in Arabic and Coptic, with an emphasis on Coptic-Arabic historiography. Her PhD dissertation aimed to shed new light on the textual transmission of the Arabic text of the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria and to realize a new critical edition of its section concerning the 4th and 5th centuries. Moreover, her scholarly interests include the History of Late Antique and Medieval Egypt, Manuscripts Studies, Middle Arabic and Christian Arabic Literature.
Perrine’s project at ISAW, “Translating the past. New insights on the transmission of historical knowledge from Late Antique to Medieval Arabic sources”, will focus on the reception and the transmission of the historical knowledge concerning Late Antiquity, through the text of the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria and the Arabic textual traditions which depend on it. More precisely, the project aims to study the actual role of this text, and of Coptic-Arabic historiographical literature in general, in the transmission of historical knowledge, clarifying their position as a link between Late Antique sources and major Classical Arabic historical works.