11th International Conference of the International Association of Manichaean Studies

Call for papers for the 11th Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence of the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Manichaean Stud­ies, Istan­bul Medeniyet Uni­ver­si­ty, 21–25 Sep­tem­ber 2026 (details at: https://www.manichaeism.de/)

The idea of form­ing the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Manichaean Stud­ies (IAMS) was advanced at the First Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence of Manichaean Stud­ies held in Lund in 1987. The suc­cess of the con­fer­ence had gen­er­at­ed a gen­uine spir­it of inter­na­tion­al and inter-dis­ci­pli­nary co-oper­a­tion which all the par­tic­i­pants wished to pre­serve and fos­ter through the for­ma­tion of a learned soci­ety. IAMS was offi­cial­ly con­sti­tut­ed at the Sec­ond Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence at Sankt Augustin near Bonn in 1989, where Pro­fes­sor Kurt Rudolph became its first pres­i­dent (1989–1997). The annu­al Manichaean Stud­ies Newslet­ter, which orig­i­nal­ly was a pri­vate ini­tia­tive by Dr Aloïs van Tonger­loo, became the newslet­ter of IAMS; for many years it has now been edit­ed by Assoc. Pro­fes­sor Gun­ner Mikkelsen. At the Third Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence held at Rende in 1993, it was decid­ed that these con­fer­ences should hence­forth take place once every four years but mem­bers were encour­aged to orga­nize theme-based sym­posia in the inter­ven­ing years. The Fourth Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence took place in Berlin in 1997; here Pro­fes­sor Johannes van Oort became the sec­ond pres­i­dent (1997–2009). The Fifth Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence was held at Naples in 2001, and the Sixth Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence at Flagstaff in 2005. Pro­fes­sor Samuel Lieu became the third pres­i­dent (2009–2013) at the Sev­enth Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence in 2009 in Dublin. The Eighth Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence took place at Lon­don in 2013; here Dr Enri­co Mora­no became the fourth pres­i­dent (2013–2017). At the Ninth Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence at Turin in 2017, Pro­fes­sor Nils Arne Ped­er­sen became the fifth pres­i­dent. The Tenth Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence was held in Aarhus in 2022; here Pro­fes­sor Jason BeDuhn became the sixth pres­i­dent.