March 19-20, 2026
Free and open to the public
Dates & Location
March 19th, 2026 – Keynote
745 Commonwealth Ave, Room 625
March 20th, 2026 – All-Day Symposium
745 Commonwealth Ave, Room B23-24
Preliminary Program
DAY 1
4-4:30 Opening Remarks
4:30-5:30 Keynote:
David Zuwiyya
Filling an Imperfect Form: The Hero’s Birth, Destiny, and Death in the Spanish Alexander Romances
Q&A Moderator: Anita Savo (Boston University)
5:30-7 Reception
DAY 2
9:15 Coffee, introductory remarks
9:30-10:45 Dialogue 1: Authority and Alexander
Chair:
Conquest and Consort: The Politics of Alexander’s Marriages in Medieval Islamic Writings / Blain Auer
Candace and Other Women in the Malay Alexander Romance / Su Fang Ng
11-12:15 Dialogue 2: Alexander in India
Chair: Brandon Jones (Boston University)
When Kṛṣṇa Faced a Greek Hero: Alexander and His Legacy in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa? / Steven Smith
‘Our souls are brighter than your own’: Cleophis Candace and India in the Historia de preliis / Russell Stone
12:15-1:30 LUNCH BREAK
1:30-2:45 Dialogue 3: Alexander and the Narrative of Imagery
Chair: Ines Garcia de la Puente (Boston University)
Miniatures in the French-Prose Alexander tradition: from narrative to narrator / Maud Pérez-Simon
Seafaring in Illustrated Manuscripts of Iskandar Narratives / Sunil Sharma
2:45-3 COFFEE BREAK
3-4:15 Dialogue 4: Re-writing Alexander
Chair:
Whose Authority Is It Anyway? Alexander in the Twelfth Century / Venetia Bridges
Alexander and Persianate Humanism in the Shahnameh / Owen Cornwall
4:15-5:30 Student panel
Chair: Sunil Sharma
Dina Famin
Katie Harmon, “Alexander Three Different Ways: How the Tale of Gog and Magog Reveals an Author’s Intentions”
Riana Richani
Andrea Guttormsen Wetzler
Emily Yoder, “Fluid Katabases: Death en Route to Legacy across the Epic of Gilgamesh, The Greek Alexander Romance, and Perceforest”