Recent scholarship on late antique and medieval Christianity has increasingly incorporated questions and methodologies from Global History. This shift in perspective arises from the recognition that the history of Christianity, even in pre-modern times, was shaped by transformative processes that operated across cultural and linguistic boundaries and transcended the political frameworks of late antique and medieval empires. This is particularly evident in the context of the Asian continent. Here, along the Silk Road linking the Roman, Persian, and Chinese empires, diverse yet interconnected forms of Christianity emerged and spread.

The study of Asian Christianities in this volume engages with current discourses in “Global Late Antiquity” and the “Global Middle Ages”, two rapidly developing fields that challenge Eurocentric and linear historical narratives. By examining Christianity within the broader context of global connectivity, we seek to illuminate how religious identities and practices were negotiated across vast geographical expanses, and how Asian Christianities participated in and contributed to these global historical frameworks. This perspective encourages us to consider the fluidity of cultural, religious, and intellectual exchanges in shaping the dynamic landscape of early and medieval Christianities across Asia. The volume, titled Asian Christianities and Global Pre-Modern History is expected to appear in the BREPOLS series "Contact and Transmission: Intercultural Encounters from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period" and thus be of interest for a wide range of scholars working in this field.

Contributors are invited to address any geographical region or linguistic area of Asia between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Papers may focus on the analysis of textual sources or examine aspects of material culture related to a specific Christian tradition. In addition, we encourage studies that explore interactions and networks among various Christian traditions or their exchanges with other religious communities.

The key question guiding the volume as a whole and the individual contribution should concern in particular the relationship between global and local aspects that emerge from a given object of inquiry. We are therefore particularly interested in articles which highlight:

- How a specific source or phenomenon reflect discourses or developments that extend beyond their local context.
- Conversely, how the global context of Christianity is reproduced and adapted to the specificities of the local context.
- Interactions between different forms of Christianity or between Christianity and its specific cultural and religious contexts.
- Phenomena that contributed to the creation of a global Christianity, such as mobility (of persons or ideas), the formation of networks, translation activities.
- Comparative perspectives that situate Asian Christianities within broader frameworks of the Global Middle Ages and Global Late Antiquity, analyzing their interactions with other religious traditions and cross-cultural dynamics.
- Case studies that emphasize the role of Christian communities in shaping regional political, social, and economic networks, considering how these communities navigated and influenced larger imperial structures.
- Methodological approaches that draw on interdisciplinary research, including archaeology, linguistics, art history, and digital humanities, to provide new insights into the study of pre-modern Asian Christianities within global historical contexts.

Contributions should be written in English and range between 6,000 and 8,000 words in length. Interested authors are invited to submit a short abstract of about 500 words (including some words about the academic background and current affiliation of the author) by December 22, 2024, to Stanislau Paulau (stanislau.paulau@theologie.uni-halle.de) and Jonathan Stutz (jonathan.stutz@hu-berlin.de).