Program

Wednesday, 04.11.2026

18:30 – 19:00András Handl & Olof Heilo
Welcome & Introduction
19:00 – 20:00Public Keynote Lecture
Anna Collar, Southampton
Mobility/Place: The Intangible and the Material in the Exploration of Past Movement and Religion
Aperó

Thursday, 05.11.2026

9:00 – 10:00Alexiana Dawn Fry, Stellenbosch
Could I Have This Dance? Moving Together with/in the Ancient Past and Our Present
10:00 – 11:00 András Handl, Bern / Leuven
How Roman is the Roman Church? Methodological Nationalism in the Making of a Christian Rome 
11:00 – 11:30Coffee break
11:30 – 12:30Gillian Glass, Bergen
Travels Between and Beyond: Comparative Approaches to Gender, Literary Genres, and Languages in the Study of Second Temple Judaism
12:30 – 13:00Discussion
13:00 – 14:30Lunch break
14:30 – 15:30Elisa Uusimäki, Aarhus
How to write travel history in light of ancient literary sources?
15:30 – 16:30Amelia R. Brown, Malta
(Christian?) Frogs around a Mediterranean Pond: Plotting change & continuity in Christian and Hellenic Aegean Maritime and Migrant Cults, from Plato & Poseidon to St. Paul & St. Menas
16:30 – 17:00Coffee break
17:00 – 18:00Jan Rüggemeier and Caroline Teschmer, Bonn
Bodies on the Move. Sexualities, Making Foreignness, and Mediating Difference in Plural Cities, Past and Present

Friday, 06.11.2026

9:00 – 10:00Alison John, Liverpool
Greek in the late antique West: migration, religion and language communities across the Mediterranean, 300 – 700 CE
10:00 – 11:00 Dan Batovici, Vienna
A Syriac Presence in Egypt: Deir al-Surian (the Monastery of the Syrians) in Wadi al-Natrun 
11:00 – 11:30Coffee break
11:30 – 12:30Madalena Toca, Vienna
The Movement of Monks from Egypt to Palestine from the Fourth to the Sixth Century
12:30 – 13:00Discussion
13:00 – 14:30Lunch break
14:30 – 15:30Marianna Mazzola, Rome
Reshaping and Obscuring Mobility: Retracing Syriac Orthodox Migration in the Tenth-Century Byzantine East through the Sources
15:30 – 16:00Coffee break
16:00 – 17:00Mateusz Jakub Fafinski, Erfurt
Studying Monastic Displacement in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Approaches and Methods
17:00 – 18:00Garbi Schmidt, Roskilde
Researching Migration Based on a Critique of Methodological Presentism

Saturday, 07.11.2026

9:00 – 10:00Annamaria Pazienza, Venice
Crossing the Alps: The Mobility of Lower-Ranking Clergy in Carolingian and Post-Carolingian Italy
10:00 – 11:00 Round Table
Panelists: Elisa Uusimäki, Garbi Schmidt, Rens Tacoma, Anna Collar, András Handl 
11:00 – 11:30Coffee break
11:30 – 12:30MigRel.Net Kick-off Business Meeting
12:30 – 13:00Closing Reflections and Future Plans
Lunch break
afternoonExcursion to Eyüpsultan